Black Widow IV: Forge of Iron
by Triptych
Summary: Fall, 3067: As the Star League begins its inevitable collapse, the Black Widow Company is reformed. But in the treacherous Dark Nebula, a place of secrets and death, will their first mission also be their last?
1. Disclaimer

This is a fanfiction work based on Classic Battletech. Classic Battletech is the property of Wizkids LLC. All rights reserved.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THE BLACK WIDOW COMPANY

Captain Natasha Kerensky- Clone of the original Black Widow

Lieutenant James "Casanova Jimmy" Clavell- Son of "Gentleman Johnny" Clavell

The Monk- Lance Commander, Tarantulas

Ethan Lafitte- Senior Technician

Kieran McGavin- Technician, grandson of Lloyd McGavin

Stilicho Jones- Mechwarrior, Wolf Spider Lance

Johnny Gundam- Mechwarrior, Wolf Spider Lance

FREE WORLDS LEAGUE

Thomas Marik- Captain-General

Captain Brenda Palomides- Personal bodyguard (Marik family)

Sergeant Hamilton Chalmers- Driver (SAFE)

Joshua Marik- Son and heir of Thomas Marik

Christopher Marik- Second son and heir to Thomas Marik

THE CLANS

Cogliostro- Merchant Lord (Diamond Sharks)

Star Captain Brunil- CO, Blood Claw (Smoke Jaguars)

Khan Marthe Pryde- Supreme leader (Jade Falcons)

Star Colonel Joanna- CO, Dark Wing Cluster (Jade Falcons)

Ixtil- Mechwarrior and senior advisor (Jade Falcons)

Dargo- Scientist (Jade Falcons)

Gudrun- Fighter Pilot, Blood Claw (Ghost Bears)

Drusilla- Communications officer, Blood Claw (Snow Ravens)

LUXOR BUILDING, THARKAD

Emil Sanderson- Security guard

Teddy Lobago- Security guard

Neil Forevin- Security guard

Anne Zimmerman- Receptionist and student

James Wilbert- Computer programmer

STAR LEAGUE AND ALLIES

Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion- Comstar

Lieutenant General Galen Cox- Head of Intelligence, SLDF

Jaime Wolf- Supreme Leader, Wolf's Dragoons

General Maeve Wolf- CO, Wolf's Dragoons

HOUSE AMARIS

The Bounty Hunter- Clone of Stefan Amaris

Meridian- Clone and Master of Assassins

Joshua- Assassin, clone of Joshua Wolf 

Dedicated with awe and respect to all Special Forces personnel everywhere. 

*Special thanks to www.classicbattletech.com and www.battletecharchive.net for their invaluable assistance in source research.


	2. I

**Black Widow: Forge of Iron**

**By Triptych**

_But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture,  
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.  
And thus I clothe my naked villainy  
With odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ,  
And seem I a saint, when most I play the Devil._

-William Shakespeare, _King Richard III_

Fall 3067.

Unlike the other members of her unit, Brenda Palomides did not have to wear the required uniform while on duty. In fact her charge preferred it that way. Uniforms always made the boy seem nervous. Although the child's parents did not want him to be accompanied by someone so inconspicuous, Brenda's superb service record and unquestioned loyalty to the Free Worlds League made her the most qualified person to act as the boy's immediate bodyguard.

Brenda smiled at her own reflection in the massive two-meter tall mirror that adorned her small room within the Imperial Palace. She had short black hair and a compact body. Although her mother warned her that many members of her family would sometimes grow large on the hips when they got older, Brenda was in such superb physical condition that she doubted it would ever happen to her. She would simply exercise and train harder so that even when she would reach her twilight years, her dreaded family curse would never reveal itself.

As per standard procedure for the boy, Brenda did not wear her Ducal Guards uniform, preferring instead a dark gray jumpsuit which made her look somewhat nondescript among the rest of the entourage that would normally accompany them. Her charge actually asked her if she could wear a dress, stating that women should look like women, not as men. Brenda smirked at the thought, despite being so young, the boy already knew quite a bit about fashion and etiquette. But then again, it was important that she wore something functional, for she needed to be able to move and maneuver quickly should an emergency arise, and she could very well not do that wearing a traditional dress now could she?

After carefully turning the safety on her compact pistol and placing it within the shoulder holster of her suit, Brenda then slid two throwing knives into her left boot. She was the top knife thrower in her unit in addition to placing second in the Atreus martial arts competition. With an unblemished record of eight years as a mechwarrior in the Fusiliers of Oriente, Brenda was selected for SAFE training and passed through that with flying colors more than two years ago. With both her charming demeanor and her experience, she was the perfect bodyguard for the Marik family.

Once she had fully dressed, she poured through the papers lying on the small desk beside her bed. The recent intelligence reports noted that aside from a few discrepancies, all was quiet in Atreus. Brenda frowned when she read the most recent directive that ordered all FWL military personnel to cooperate fully with any representative of the Word of Blake. Like many others in her unit, she had a growing distrust directed towards these former ComStar personnel. Their rigid adherence to their extreme beliefs made them into dangerous fanatics that would tolerate no dissent among others. And now the Captain-General himself gave explicit orders that they were to be tolerated and full cooperation would be extended to them under all circumstances.

Brenda sighed. Despite her misgivings about the Blakists, she was not the type of person to make a row. Brenda firmly believed in Thomas Marik, the Captain-General of the Free Worlds League and she was more than willing to give up her life for him and his children. So in an ironic sort of way, she was also a fanatic herself.

As she strapped on the mobile communicator onto her belt and placed the earpiece into her left ear she then instantly activated it. Three beeps echoed in her ear as the scrambler system activated and allowed the Communications Center information on her current whereabouts. In addition to having instant access to communicate with the Ducal Guards, it also served as a homing beacon in case of emergencies.

Brenda spoke softly in order to test the throat mike. "This is Captain Palomides. I am online."

"Voice recognition authenticated, Captain. Good morning." Comm Center replied.

"Orders of the day?"

"You are to escort Janos Marik to the Commonwealth General Hospital for his routine check-up. A suite has been prepared for him on the 4th floor which has also been cordoned off from other residents."

"Whose in command at the hospital?" Brenda liked to be thorough when it came to briefings.

"Major Davenport of the 213th Company. He will be expecting you by no later than 10 am this morning," Comm Center replied.

"Acknowledged. Who is the vehicle driver for today?" Brenda queried.

"Sergeant Chalmers will be driving the designated vehicle today. Primary convoy will be leaving from the south gate of the palace in approximately fifteen minutes."

Chalmers was a good man. Brenda worked with him for quite a few years now. A former tank driver of the Second Free Worlds Guards, he had been referred to personally by the Captain-General's nephew, Photon Brett-Marik. Versed in evasive driving as well as being an accomplished martial artist, Hamilton Chalmers was a dependable choice.

"Roger that, Comm Center. I am on my way towards the south gate." Brenda confirmed as she headed out from her room towards the assembly area.

It was standard procedure to always have two convoys when any member of the Marik family would be traveling on the road. The first convoy would be a decoy in order to fool potential terrorists and would be as conspicuous as possible, with armored personnel carriers and quite an entourage of support vehicles. The real convoy was in fact, much smaller and would be composed of only four, nondescript vehicles. This quad convoy of luxury sedan automobiles would be virtually identical to each other, in order to fool would-be aggressors who would end up confused as to which vehicle would actually contain the family members. So far for the past sixty years, this arrangement worked to perfection, not a single member of the Marik family was ever injured while traveling in this convoy.

As the group of decoys began to exit the northern gates of the palace, Brenda inspected each of the four vehicles in the primary convoy that was parked in the interior garage of the palace. Three of the vehicles would contain a fire-team of four special-forces troopers each while the fourth vehicle would only contain herself, the driver and the boy, Janos.

Brenda walked over to the second luxury sedan and tapped on the driver's side window. It instantly rolled down to reveal a well-built man in a purple and gold driver's uniform. The face was weather beaten and the man's nose had a piece of tape over it. Chalmers had broken his nose from a skiing accident only a week before.

"Good morning, Captain. I guess I'm up today." Chalmers smiled. He had perfect white teeth that Brenda liked.

"No sweat, Chalmers." Brenda returned the smile. "Just a routine drop off to the hospital."

"Well I hope it isn't serious. Is the lad okay?"

"He's fine. It will just be a routine check up. His younger brother Christopher had a mild case of the flu last night and they just want to make sure that the older one is okay."

"No sweat then, Captain. We'll get him to the hospital safe and sound."

"Lets hope so. How's the nose?" Brenda asked.

"Much better now, thank you Ma'am. I know my driving was somewhat erratic these past few days but I guarantee a smooth ride today," Chalmers quipped.

Brenda grinned as she noticed a dark haired, eight-year old boy being led by two women towards the parked cars. She quickly signaled the vehicles to start up as she headed over to meet them. Little Janos Marik had decided to wear an exact replica of his father's Captain-General uniform. The purple Marik eagle was prominently displayed on his collar. Brenda tried to imagine the boy as an adult wearing a much larger version of that uniform but decided to forgo that thought for now. There was work to be done.

"And how are you today, Janos?" Brenda asked the boy.

"Fine thanks, but my brother is sick. Where are we going today?" The boy asked.

One of the other women replied, "Master Janos, you will be going to the starport today."

Janos gave the evil eye to his nannies. "I wasn't asking you."

Brenda smiled. They lied to the boy in order for him to get here because everyone knew Janos was afraid of doctors. "Just for a short trip. Come on, let's get going." She said with no illusions.

"Okay." For once, the boy made no resistance.

As Brenda and the heir to the Free Worlds League got into the second sedan, Janos' nannies quickly returned back into the palace. The boy preferred to be with Brenda for she had learned how to please him by treating him as an equal rather than patronizing him which everyone else seemed to do. This endeared her to the boy as well as the Marik family for whom she considered as her own.

Within a few minutes, all four cars had begun their journey towards the hospital. Despite the fact that it had state of the art infrastructure, Atreus was sparsely populated due to the fact that the planet's manufacturing industry was very light and heavily automated while the rest of the population were mostly government employees as well as a small service sector to support them. Consequently, travel by road was surprisingly almost free of traffic.

Janos liked to travel by car; the ride was smooth and steady compared to the constant vibrations and noise of a helicopter. Whatever the heir preferred, he got. It was a fine sunny day and the clear blue sky would definitely make a lot of people take the day off from work and spend a holiday in the resorts on the outskirts of the city. Janos and Brenda were in the second car as the convoy passed its way along a four-lane boulevard that housed a victory park to commemorate the return of a number of League worlds that had been annexed by the now-defunct Federated Commonwealth. It was called Victory Park and it had lined several bronze statues of Thomas Marik along the road. Janos was peering through the tinted, bulletproof window to stare at several sculptures as the car passed them by.

"Janos, please don't keep fiddling with your seatbelt." Brenda requested.

"I don't like it, it's too tight," The boy replied.

"You need to wear it so you won't get a bump on your head in case the car crashes. Why don't you adjust the strap then?"

"The car won't crash because our driver is Chalmers," The boy answered.

Brenda suppressed the urge to laugh as she saw Chalmers' white-toothed smile in the reflection of the rearview mirror. It was true to a certain extent, Chalmers was the best driver she had worked with and the boy trusted him as well.

"Chalmers is good Janos, but its better to be safe than-" Brenda's words were interrupted by a sonic boom as a massive explosion ripped into the last car of the convoy.

The last car seemed to suddenly lurch forward and then rose up ten feet into the air as the bomb that was planted underneath the road ripped into its armored frame. It seemed to be a mixture of C4 and thermite because the car's interior was illuminated by an orange light that bathed it in a hellish glow before it collapsed into a molten heap along the side of the road. The shockwave of the explosion smashed into the third car as well, ripping out its rear tires and hurtling it sideways. The second vehicle only absorbed a distant part of the shockwave and its rear window was shattered, though it didn't break. The first vehicle seemed unharmed.

As soon as she felt the sonic boom, Brenda instinctively covered Janos with her own body. Chalmers also went into his emergency mode as he floored the accelerator and honked the horn of the car to signal the lead vehicle to increase speed. They needed to get out of the area as quickly as possible.

The driver of the lead car immediately recovered from his shock and started leading what was left of the convoy towards the emergency route that would take them back to the palace. They would make a quick run along a busy commercial street to get to a freeway.

As both cars accelerated away from the carnage, Brenda inspected the boy for any injuries. "Are you all right, Janos?"

The boy did not reply as tears dripped down his pale cheeks. He seemed otherwise okay though visibly shaken. Brenda adjusted the boy's seatbelt into a tight fit as she held him close to her.

Other than the shattered rear glass, the car seemed to perform as if nothing else was damaged. Brenda subconsciously thanked the makers of this vehicle, despite looking like an inauspicious sedan it was in fact heavily armored enough to withstand small arms fire but as she noted, it did little against a massive bomb. Thoughts began to race through Brenda's mind as to the circumstances of the attack. The perpetrators seemed to have known the exact route of the vehicles. Even the bomb was perfectly timed, probably using a spotter with a remote controlled detonator. Did the attackers also know which vehicle in the convoy that the heir to the Free Worlds League traveled in?

Brenda tried to get in touch with Comm Central but all she got in her earpiece was static the moment the bomb went off. Did it also have an EMP component in addition to the plastic explosives?

"Chalmers, can you get Comm Center on your radio?" Brenda asked.

"No, Captain. My electronics are out," Chalmers replied. That confirmed it.

"What's our ETA back to the palace?"

"As soon as we pass through this commercial district, about fifteen minutes," Chalmers answered as he made minute adjustments on the wheel as the car sped along.

Brenda stroked the child's hair. He was no longer crying but kept his eyes shut. "Hang on, Janos. We're almost home," She said.

"I'm scared." The child whimpered in her lap.

"Don't be, Janos. It will be okay soon." Brenda answered as she kept her other hand close to her pistol.

As the two cars began to turn and move into the commercial street, Brenda noticed that the shops lining the avenue seemed to have been boarded up. There was nobody on the street. As she shouted at Chalmers that it could be a trap, a large bus instantly came out of a side alley and occupied the road in front of them. The two cars braked to avoid this new obstacle but the lead car was too fast and slammed into the side of the bus, denting the large vehicle's flank.

"Back up! Hurry!" Brenda shouted to Chalmers as she noticed there were people on the roof.

As the second sedan began backing up, it was raked by machinegun fire from a two-man team on the roof. Janos wailed and covered his ears as the metal slugs impacted on the armored side of the car. Chalmers cursed as he put on the hand brake and accelerated while on reverse, almost toppling the car over but the maneuver worked, the car fishtailed into a 180-degree turn as Chalmers floored the accelerator to get them out of there.

The lead car wasn't so lucky, as it tried to pull out its embedded front from the side of the bus, it was instantly hit by a two shoulder-fired inferno missiles that gutted it. Two Special Forces troopers crawled out from the back of the burning car; one was on fire while the other one had two broken legs. Both were cut down by the machinegun emplacement on the roof.

The last remaining car sped into an underpass tunnel as Chalmers continued to accelerate. Brenda looked around and saw that the armored shell of the car had once again protected them. As they sped along the almost deserted tunnel, Brenda began to realize it was indeed an inside job.

"Chalmers, you can slow down now." Brenda ordered as she observed that the car was traveling dangerously fast along the confined tunnel.

The driver didn't seem to hear as the car continued to accelerate.

"Sergeant, I said-" Brenda stopped in mid-sentence as she realized the awful truth. She quickly reached for her pistol as Chalmers slammed the brakes and the car dovetailed into a concrete column that divided the two-lane tunnel.

Because it was traveling at such a high speed when it collided with the massive divider, the weight of the car combined with its speed turned it into a heavy steel coffin as it seemed to compress onto itself. It was as if an unstoppable force had met an immovable object.

After blacking out for about what seemed an eternity, Hamilton Chalmers quickly groped for the knife in his wrist holster and began popping the airbags that had inflated around him as the car slammed into the divider. His seatbelt was reinforced and he had carefully trained in a crash simulator to make sure that the airbags were properly in place as he did his own modifications on the car a few nights before. As he unbuckled the seat belt and slid away from the deflated front airbags, Chalmers noticed that his right arm was broken. Oh well, even the best of plans would not fully work to perfection, he thought.

As he looked at the passenger section behind him, he quickly checked to make sure the woman and the boy were dead. As he examined Janos, he noticed that the boy's face had turned into a bloody pulp and left a big crimson stain on his little uniform. His skull probably caved in upon impact as the sabotaged seatbelts came loose.

Chalmers twisted the boy's little neck with his good arm until he heard a snap. Just to make sure.

As the driver of the car began to inch his way out through the front panel of the car windshield, he heard a soft groan. Peering back in, he saw that Brenda Palomides was still stirring. Chalmers cursed about the inequities of fate until he realized that her blood-soaked moan pretty much heralded her final moments of life. With that in mind, he finally slid out of the vehicle and limped away.

Brenda was dying. Her chest was crushed and her breaths became shallower and shallower as the seconds ticked by. Bone splinters from her shattered ribcage had imbedded themselves into her vital organs, causing internal bleeding as well as building up fluid in her lungs which added to the complications. She tried groping for Janos but she sensed correctly that the boy was already dead. Her final thoughts were unhappy ones as she realized that despite all her training, all her experience, all her devotion to her craft, in the end, had all come to naught.

A single tear came out of Brenda's good eye as she died knowing she had failed in her duty.

It took about an hour for Hamilton Chalmers to finally get to the safe house in a nondescript suburb of Atreus. He made sure that nobody followed him by taking a circular route as well as turning his coat inside out. Chalmers also discarded part of his nose into a trashcan when he passed along a nearby alleyway as he used his escape and evasion skills to full effect.

When he bolted the door behind him, Chalmers immediately had a change of clothes while he dumped the old ones into the mini incinerator to be burned to ashes. He also checked the rest of his body for injuries as he tore off the Kevlar vest that he was wearing underneath his shirt. Aside from his fractured forearm, he had bruised ribs when the steering wheel dug into his chest but the Kevlar took most of the impact out of it.

As he examined his bruised chest in the mirror, it was then that he noticed there was someone else in the room. Turning around quickly, Chalmers could see that it was a man sitting by the porch. He had pale skin and straight white hair that extended all the way to his shoulders and was wearing a solid black suit. He quickly recognized who it was and let out a sigh of relief.

"Did I scare you?" The white-haired man said.

"A little bit, my Lord. I was not aware that you have returned to active status," Chalmers replied as he took out his false teeth.

"Yes, Joshua. I needed to keep that confidential until my current mission was over. Our leader demanded it."

"Are you part of this mission, Lord Meridian?" Joshua asked. His arm was still throbbing but it was now just a dull ache.

"Yes. Due to the fact that the Blakists wanted the timetable accelerated, they wanted both boys dead within the month. We need to start moving strike teams into Outreach as well, I want you in mine."

"Both boys? They may tighten security on the younger boy now that the older one is dead."

"I am aware of that, Joshua. Your operation was somewhat spectacular but sloppy."

"In what way, Lord Meridian?" Joshua was somewhat taken aback by the criticism but he felt that he could learn from his mistakes.

Meridian closed his eyes as he analyzed what had just happened. "Too many variables. Too many things could have gone wrong. You used quite a number of support personnel and cordoned off whole sections of the street. Not to mention that the impostor would know that it was a blatant assassination attempt."

"But I thought that was the whole purpose? To send a message."

"To a certain degree, yes. But it could have been done in more supple ways, Joshua. In your operation, you used two separate attacks to strip the escorts away from the target vehicle; then you deliberately crashed it to kill the passengers. If you had a slight error at any point, you or your support personnel might have been killed and the whole operation might have been compromised."

Joshua was apologetic. "Yes, I see it now, my Lord. My apologies, it won't happen again. I shall make better planning next time."

"It's not a problem since you did succeed after all. Just look at this as a learning experience." Meridian smiled.

"Our problem now would be to get access to the younger son now that our position has been revealed," Joshua admitted.

"The younger boy has already been taken care of." Meridian glanced at his watch. "He should be dead by now."

Joshua was shocked. "What? How?"

"I ran a parallel operation aside from your own. I was able to gain access to the boy and exposed him to some biological agents." Meridian smiled again.

Joshua could not help but be amazed. Despite all of his planning, the master of the arts had shown him the way. He had much to learn. "The flu?" Joshua asked.

"Yes. It was a bio weapon created in the late 21st Century. There is no cure. The child would have died quietly in his sleep by now and the impostor will have gotten the message just the same."

"Totally impressive, my Lord." Joshua smiled.

"Somewhat," Meridian said nonchalantly. "Get yourself fixed up. We need to be in Outreach in a few weeks time, more operations to be done."

"What about the impostor? When will he get his comeuppance?" Joshua asked.

"When our Blakist employers give us the go signal. But then again, what St. Jamais and his band of motley fools don't know is that the impostor was a product of our own _supersedure_ program when ComStar hired us to create a replacement. Our great leader does love to toy with the powers that be, don't you think?" Meridian chided.

Both the master and his disciple laughed. Circles within circles- plans within plans. The puppet master was but a puppet. And soon, all would fall down dead.


	3. II

-From Meridian's Journal

  _Due to the fact that Word of Blake needed as many operatives as possible within a short time, we needed to accelerate the training for our latest batch of assassins. The foolish Blakists thought that we were nothing more than a corporate enterprise or perhaps even a group of mercenaries that specialized in shipments of nuclear and biological weapons as well as providing cadres of trained assassins, but we were much more than that. We would provide the fanatics with what they needed because they would provide the catalyst for the devastation of both the Inner-Sphere and the Clans. In many ways, our aims were similar. Of course, when they were no longer of any use to us, we would discard them just as one would discard a broken sword after a battle._

_  Although I hated having to rush the training of my operatives, our personnel were still in fact the best compared to anything that the Clans or the Inner-Sphere had had to offer. Each generation of assassins were better than the ones that preceded it and so far as I could tell, this particular batch possessed an excellent grasp of the dynamics of both the present and the past. They could be our best operatives ever._

_  I had started out the lecture by explaining the birth of our profession. "The origin of the word assassin is actually a western corruption of the hashashin. This so-called band of Middle-Eastern fanatics was active at the time of Earth's Middle Ages. They were called hashashin due to the fact that they would take the drug hashish before committing their attacks in order for them to be in a state of ecstasy for they would never show fear in battle. The hashashin always fought in the dead of night and in many disguises. The Christian crusaders found their tactics to be lacking in chivalry and honor but these murderous fanatics were highly effective."_

_  "The hallmarks of the assassin is the very nature of speed and surprise; never fight in a fair manner. An assassin follows no code of conduct; in battle any sort of tactic, no matter how eccentric or unconventional, was the order of the day. In feudal Japan, secret teams of assassins called ninjas supplemented armies of samurai. In the 20th century, another from of assassin came about." I continued._

_  One young student raised his hand and answered. "Were these called terrorists?"_

_  "Yes, that is correct." I added. "The terrorist was a different breed of assassin, one who would use the same tactics to achieve a political purpose. During that time of Earth's history, mighty nations controlled large and powerful conventional armies and some of the weaker nations as well as some separatist groups could only oppose them using unconventional methods such as terrorists." _

_  "But enough of history." I went on. "At the time of the present day, we have developed new systems and new technologies to increase our chances of securing a successful operation. But please remember, that technology is no substitute for training and mental conditioning. A weapon is only as good as the hand that wields it."_

_  "One particular aspect of the new systems that we have developed is our supersedure program. This is an infiltration system that can be used either as an assassination operation or may even be for long term purposes such as deep cover agents and even government figureheads."_

_  Another student, this time a woman, raised her hand. "You mean Thomas Marik?"_

_  I suppressed the urge to laugh. This batch was good. "Yes, quite right. Thomas Marik was an early example of our long-term supersedure program. Of course the methods were not yet perfected up to that point and now we shall soon see the consequences of that."_

_  "But were we not hurried due to the fact that ComStar wanted a replacement immediately?" The same woman asked another question._

_  "Once again you are correct." I told the class. "Proper application of supersedure means that the original target must be eliminated and his remains completely unidentifiable prior to the implementation of the replacement. Unfortunately for our previous employers, the original target survived and in fact now holds a position of great power in direct opposition with that of the replacement. Of course, he himself has contacted us for our services, never knowing the fact that it was we that had tried to supersede him initially."_

_  The audience erupted in laughter. It was all so ironic._

_  "Please refer to your textbooks." I continued. "Supersedure is essentially the replacement of an individual. In order to achieve this, the target must be observed and studied for as long as possible. Every movement, every habit must be learned by the replacement prior to supersedure; otherwise the target's friends, family and professional colleagues may be alerted that things may be amiss. Aside from plastic surgery to alter the replacement's appearance to equal that of the target in every way, great care must be taken to make sure that the replacement can withstand even biometric scrutiny. DNA samples, iris and retina implants as well as fingerprint grafts enable our replacements to pass the most stringent security checks possible."_

_  "But please remember that infiltration is but one component of your training. As a professional assassin, you must also be an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Each of you has passed through the most rigorous training in actual combat conditions; every person in this room has already killed dozens of slave fighters as well as actual training targets all across the Inner-Sphere even before your selection for this program. Your very bodies have been honed as weapons. Remember that the webbing between your thumb and forefinger, the lower palm of your hands as well as your elbows are the most dependable parts of your body in close combat; these body parts can be used to kill even when they are injured or broken. You have studied the anatomy of the human body very thoroughly; you can stun a man by delivering a swift kick to his hip where the femoral artery is located, you can kill by a blow to his throat and by using the special technique that I have taught you, you can deliver a devastating palm attack to crush his chest; thereby driving his splintered ribcage into his lungs and heart." I went on._

_  "You have all been trained thoroughly in the use of every weapon; from knives to death wands. Each one of you is an expert marksman, capable of operating sniper rifles that will enable you to kill targets kilometers away. You have also received training in the use of biological agents and poisons should the need arise."_

_  "What about battlemechs?" Another student asked._

_  "Although you have been trained as mechwarriors, a battlemech has very little use in assassinations, especially amongst heads of state. It is much too conspicuous and blunt for operations that require a precise touch. I can akin the use of mechs like that of trying to destroy a nest of cockroaches using a machinegun: very sloppy and quite inaccurate. There are more precise weapons that you could use." I answered. "But don't get me wrong; a battlemech can still be used if the situation warrants it, though it would not be the ideal weapon of choice for such things."_

_  "And of course, there is demolitions; the making of bombs and such. A number of us may scoff at using such an indirect method of killing a target. But there is very little risk of compromising oneself due to the fact that one need not to even be in the same area as the target. We have used bombs to devastating effect in previous operations, I can assure you."_

_  Another young man raised his hand. "Do you mean the Tharkad bombing that killed Melissa Steiner and injured Morgan Kell?"_

_  "Yes, absolutely." I was impressed once again. This class certainly knew our operational history. "The foolish Davions blamed the Skye separatists and vice versa. It was a textbook operation. No one ever realized that it was we, just as the Kuritas never realized that it was our assassin that killed Minoru with a single laser shot during the First Succession War. In fact, we even eliminated Ryan Steiner when his silly Skye Rebellion was no longer of any use to us."_

_  The young lady who asked a previous question queried again. "What of the man who eliminated Morgan Hasek-Davion during the Star League's Operation Serpent, Lucas Penrose?"_

_  "Yes, he was one of ours." I sighed. "But Penrose was unstable to begin with and it was a miracle that he died without revealing our organization. We have of course taken steps that a mentally unstable individual such as Penrose would never be cleared for operational duty ever again. But then, our employers were somewhat in a rush and Penrose was the only available operative we had at the time." _

_  "Which then brings us to the most important aspect of an assassin's training: mental conditioning. Although we have all been trained very intensively to the point that we can use our skills in our sleep, the stresses of our operations does take a mental toll on all of us. Some operations might entail long-term infiltration and deep cover to the point that we spend quite a substantial period away from our teammates and our home. The mental stress is intense. That is why almost none of us operates alone, we need a support team not only for backup in case of emergencies but also as a means of familiarity and comradeship; in a sense, a team is almost like a family, in its own way." I went on. "Man is a social animal and the team bond enables each operative to be able to bleed the stress of the job away and enables them to maintain a healthy social bond with their peers. The consequences of not having an outlet during the stress of operations can be devastating and self-destructive to an individual operative."_

_  "But then again, psychological warfare can be used as an effective weapon as well." I added. "The intimidation factor as well as convincing the enemy that they are fighting for a lost cause can have a powerful impact. Most heads of state are vulnerable to this form of warfare due to the fact that they are in a way detached from others because of their very position. With careful knowledge of the target's psychological profile, we can use a variety of techniques to unhinge his already weakened mental state, thereby enabling us to take advantage of his vulnerabilities by either killing him or making him do our bidding."_

_  Another student raised his hand. "You mean like Jinjiro and the doll?" He asked._

_  I finally tilted my head back and laughed. This class had thoroughly done their historical research and made their conclusions that we had undeniably done a superb number of operations in the past. This was indeed the best class ever. I am quite convinced that they would do very well within the next few years for our Blakist hosts._


	4. III

  The year 3060 marked the death of a Clan. Two years prior to that, the Great Houses of the Inner-Sphere cast aside their differences and created a new Star League. Their combined armies quickly targeted the most brutal Clan that had dared to invade the Inner-Sphere, the Smoke Jaguars. After a merciless campaign that lasted almost two years, the Jaguars finally ceased to exist. With most of their warriors dead, their homeworld decimated and ultimately conquered by the other Clans, no one lamented their passing. The few Jaguar warriors that had either survived the relentless attacks or those that arrived too late were either absorbed as bondsmen to the other Clans or were taken prisoner by the Star League. A few turned rogue and joined the Dark Caste as bandits and pirates, venting their hatred and fury to anyone unlucky enough to chance upon them.

  As the expeditionary forces of the Star League began to rampage across the Clan homeworlds towards the Smoke Jaguar world of Huntress, every available ship of the Smoke Jaguar Clan was dispatched to meet them. One ship, however, never made it to that battle.

  Star Captain Brunil tightened his grip on his chair overlooking the bridge of the _Blood Claw_. The former Smoke Jaguar warship was about to make the jump towards the designated nadir point. Over the past 900 years, despite the fact that jumpships would travel faster than the speed of light by creating a space warp around their ships, some vessels would mysteriously disappear into the blackness of space, never to be seen again.

  Despite the fact that he was a veteran of many jumps, the moments before the jump still made Brunil nervous.

  "K-F Drive ready sir. All systems on standby." The ship's navigator stated.

  "Prepare for jump." Brunil announced. "At my command, execute!"

  When the ship lurched forward as the massive powercoils around its solar sails began to expel their charge, Star Captain Brunil's thoughts harkened back several years, to the circumstances as to how he and his ship had gotten to this point in time. 

  Seven years before, the _Blood Claw_ was a newly recommissioned Essex class destroyer. Having been taken out of mothballs just a few months before the Star League attack, the Smoke Jaguar warship encountered difficulties with its K-F jump drive which facilitated the crew to make emergency repairs while it was still at the nadir of a pirate jump point at a gas giant near Belphegor. Once the emergency repairs were completed, the _Blood Claw _was finally able to make the jump into the Huntress system. But by the time it had got there, the battle was over. The Smoke Jaguar homeworld was decimated as the Star League forces moved on towards the cradle of Clan civilization, Strana Mechty. Seeing no further hope for their Clan, the former Captain decided to try to jump towards the remaining Jaguar holdings in Clan space, hoping to link up with any survivors but was intercepted by a Black Lion class battlecruiser under the banner of Clan Jade Falcon. The Falcons had apparently sent a warship of their own to try to secure some booty from the ruins of the Smoke Jaguar planet.

  As both vessels pounded each other with massive naval autocannons and laser batteries, the former Captain of the _Blood Claw_ was fatally injured when a laser barrage hit the bridge of the Smoke Jaguar destroyer. By virtue of its superior speed, the _Blood Claw_ was able to retreat as its aerospace fighter wing sacrificed itself so that the vessel could live on to fight another day.

  Months passed as the stricken destroyer jumped from pirate point to pirate point across Clan space, performing what repairs it could and attempting to learn about any news from charitable merchants about any Smoke Jaguar survivors. Alas, the news that the Jaguars were decimated and that the survivors were ultimately scattered prompted a fateful debate among the surviving crew. The First Officer that had assumed command upon the death of the original Star Captain ordered the ship into a suicidal attack against any Clan that would dare plunder the ruins of Huntress. Another small but vocal minority advocated that the _Blood Claw_ and its crew become pirates, plundering their way across the galaxy. Yet another group advocated scuttling the ship and to part their separate ways.

  In time, a full-scale civil war raged among the crew of the ship. Warriors and technicians who once belonged to one of the most powerful Clans now tore into each other like wild animals until only a few survivors remained. The only survivor of the command crew on the bridge was the helmsman, a young warrior named Brunil. With the remaining survivors realizing that the ship was doomed without someone knowing how to pilot and navigate her, they quickly elevated Brunil as Star Captain of the _Blood Claw_.

  Star Captain Brunil soon got the decimated ship underway and the survivors were chanced upon by a Clan Diamond Shark merchant vessel a few weeks later. The Diamond Sharks were master traders and they had a very powerful merchant caste; unlike the other Clans, were warriors had the power, the Diamond Sharks were more democratic. A wily merchant named Cogliostro quickly secured a deal: the trading vessel would repair and refurbish the _Blood Claw_ in exchange for Captain Brunil's personal loyalty to Cogliostro and to him only.

  Brunil accepted and gave his _rede_, an honor bound promise of loyalty to the merchant lord. He was a Clan warrior without a Clan, a man who was lost, both materially and psychologically. In Cogliostro, he sensed a kindred spirit, one who burned with vengeance in his heart as much as Brunil did. In time, his loyalty to the Diamond Shark merchant became absolute to the point of fanaticism and Brunil considered him as _trothkin_, his peer. Wherever Cogliostro would lead, he would follow.

  As the _Blood Claw_ emerged into a dimly lit star system, Brunil and the crew once again adjusted their senses after experiencing a momentary lapse in thought that was a common side effect due to the hyperspace jump. The system's Red Dwarf star cast an eerie crimson light into the view ports of the _Blood Claw_ that gave a reddish tint to the ship's interior. Some of the crew thought that it was a hellish omen but it didn't matter either way, they were home.

  Once the ship had retracted its solar sails, Brunil ordered standard thrust as the _Blood Claw_ plowed through thick clouds of flowing stellar dust. This area was known as the Dark Nebula and it was located at the edge of the Jade Falcon occupation zone in the Inner Sphere. Within half an hour, the ship sighted a small, rotating planetoid.

  As the vessel edged closer, the Blood Claw began to activate her maneuvering thrusters towards the black, cratered surface until the outlines of an ancient naval base could be seen from the bridge. The insignia of the old Star League, the Cameron Star, could be seen on the concrete equator. This base was called Camelot Command and it was now under the complete control of Cogliostro.

  Centuries before, the first Star League had created this naval base as a use for both the refit and repair of capital ships during its war against the now defunct Rim Worlds Republic. As the first Star League collapsed, it was abandoned and stood idle for centuries until the Clan invasion. A mercenary unit called Snord's Irregulars recently rediscovered it. The Irregulars were able to take control of the station and successfully defended it for some time against the Jade Falcons. When the Fedcom Civil War began, the Irregulars abandoned the station and initiated a computer virus to destroy all known coordinates leading to it on both the databases of ComStar and the Clan information nets. For all intents and purposes, the Irregular's ploy was largely successful because the Falcons were unable to pinpoint the location of the base and the Federated Commonwealth was too busy fighting with itself to send any troops to take it.

  But the wily Cogliostro had other plans, upon learning of the existence of a base in the Dark Nebula; he quickly set up an intelligence network within the Lyran Alliance for the purpose of gathering enough information on the general whereabouts of Camelot Command. After several years of painstaking work, he took the _Blood Claw_ and a small group of merchant ships to the Dark Nebula; within a span of a few weeks, they were able to successfully find and take control of the base.

  As the _Blood Claw_ successfully attached itself to the port of the eastern horizon of the base, Star Captain Brunil left his captain's chair and proceeded to the main airlock. Within a few minutes, the airlock cycled its atmosphere to match the surroundings and opened with a whoosh of cold air. Stepping into the base with a limp from his old injuries, Brunil came face to face with a short, wiry man with a pointed beard dressed in an ocean blue Diamond Shark merchant's uniform.

  Brunil bowed to the man. "Lord Cogliostro, I am so honored that you have chosen to meet me personally."

  "Rise, my friend." The merchant lord said. "Have you gathered the necessary supplies?"

  "_Aff_, my lord. It took us considerable time for we had to pass through Rim Collection space so that the Lyrans would not be able to track us." Brunil answered.

  "Walk with me. I would like to show you our progress so far." Cogliostro beckoned.

  "At once, my lord."

  As the warship captain and the merchant lord walked along a series of corridors, they could notice that the area was teeming with activity: merchants of many Clans were seen either helping to unpack crates as technicians were doing work on machinery which lined the walls of the base. Former Clan warriors as well as mercenaries would also be seen either on guard duty or supervising the loading of weapons on the _Blood Claw_.

  "I am impressed, Lord Cogliostro. It seems that your followers have doubled in number for the last two months since I have been away." Brunil observed.

  "_Aff_, it does seem that way. I have been busy recruiting members of the Dark Caste as well as Inner-Sphere mercenaries. Quite a few of the warriors are former Jaguars like yourself. A few Hells Horses mechwarriors have joined us. They are apparently not too happy with their new Khan." Cogliostro smiled as they continued walking.

  "Impressive. So how do we stand in terms of military forces?" Brunil asked.

  "We have nearly two clusters of mechs and armored vehicles. As far as Elementals, perhaps about seven points. With naval assets, we now have six omni-fighters, three jumpships and of course, we have the _Blood Claw_."

  "And I am also certain that the defensive turrets around Camelot Command are now fully operational?"

  "Absolutely. It will take a major attack from either the Jade Falcons or the Lyrans to dislodge us from this base."

  "But since they are at each other's throats and not to mention the fact that they have forgotten about us, that pretty much means that we have the time to finish our project, _quiaff_?" Brunil asked rhetorically.

  "_Aff_. Within two months, Hydra will become a reality and by then it will be too late for them." Cogliostro stated as they entered a newly built wing of the base.

  After placing their hands on the biometric scanner on the side of the heavily fortified airlock, the door opened and they quickly entered a sealed chamber. In contrast to the rest of the base, the corridor that they walked along was painted stark white and there was an antiseptic smell found in the purified air as they passed through a second airlock.

  Once the airlock behind them was electronically sealed, Brunil and Cogliostro walked into a large laboratory. Scientists who were formerly affiliated with many other Clans could be seen milling about, performing experiments while others were doing a number of medical simulations on their computers.

  One particular man in a white lab smock strode over to both of them. He wore thick glasses and it was apparent that he hadn't shaved for days. After greeting Brunil in customary Clan fashion, he handed a set of papers to Cogliostro.

  "Is this good news?" Cogliostro asked the scientist as he read the reports.

  "_Aff_. We have been able to isolate the mutagen. This means that we can begin the process of manufacturing the immune serum within a week's time." The man answered.

  "Excellent. This means that once we have delivered the immune serum to all of our allies amongst the merchant, scientist, tech and worker castes, we may then unleash the Hydra virus all across Sphere and Clan space." Cogliostro said.

  "How sure are we that this serum is effective?" Brunil asked.

  "Very sure." The scientist answered him. "The reason why we named the virus Hydra in the first place was because it could have multiple mutagen strains. By isolating the mutagens, we can place them into a permanent state of hibernation so to speak. They will be completely harmless to one who has been exposed to the serum."

  "At the same time, the virus has been created specifically to attack the original 800 Bloodnamed among the Clans. On all the tests we've done, anyone who has the codex of the original 800 will be the most susceptible to Hydra. Unrelated humans will have a better chance of surviving than the original Bloodnamed." Cogliostro added as the scientist went back to his research.

  Brunil frowned. "I understand, but I still don't like it. There is no honor in killing someone by pestilence."

  "Honor? Don't lecture me about honor!" Cogliostro fumed. "This ridiculous code of Clan honor is what got us into this in the first place! Can't you see? The Clan way of life is finished. We have been beaten by the Inner-Sphere time and time again! And the fault lies in the warrior caste; they have let us down despite our superior technologies. It is now time to replace the ruling Bloodnamed with a more democratic culture, a united leadership that will dispense of this silly concept of honor and fair play. With the superior technology and the combined might of all the Clans, we can easily crush these barbarians. You and I will both bring a new change to the Clan way of life. The time of the warrior caste is now over my friend. Surely you realize this, _quiaff_?"

  "_Aff_ my lord. You are right." Brunil answered. Cogliostro was always right. The warrior castes did nothing except squabble amongst themselves. Even as his own Clan, the Smoke Jaguars were fighting for their lives, the other Clans did not raise a finger to help them. But once the Bloodnamed would be done away with, a new revolution would happen and the Clans would be reunited and led by the merchant castes this time. Cogliostro had called his own _kurultai_, his own merchant's council among all the other Clan merchants and all had agreed. Once the warriors were gone, the merchant caste would take over and lead a unified Clan front.

  But of course, because the other Clans were firmly in control of their respective warrior castes, the other merchants could offer no more than symbolic support for Cogliostro's cause. Even the merchant lord himself kept his operations secret from his own Khan, lest his dealings be found out and would result in his execution. Some merchants, especially the Jade Falcon ones, did send support materiel and intelligence over to his network every now and then but it was sporadic at best. Nevertheless, Cogliostro's ambitions would come to fruition in the end, he was confident about that.

  Both men left the laboratory in order to ready their respective roles. Once Hydra was unleashed, the Clans would tremble.


	5. IV

  As a child, Dargo once confided to his mother that he would be a great man someday. His mother told him not to aim too high in life, for they were but a freebirth family living in the shadow of one of the most powerful Clans in existence and that the most that a freeborn could aspire to was to serve the interests of the Clan not as a leader, but as a loyal follower.

  But Dargo and his older brother Remul were ambitious, and traditions would not stop them from attaining their dreams of becoming legends that would earn a passage in the Clan _Remembrance_. They would be spoken of in generations to come, each brother said. Despite their freeborn status, they would be known and remembered forever. As both brothers grew strong, both would pray nightly to the shrine of Turkina in the anteroom of the family's abode. Each brother swore an oath never to be relegated to second place.

  Alas, tragedy struck. Within a few years after attaining his seventeenth birthday, Remul was killed in a training exercise for warrior caste selection. From then on, Dargo's parents forbade their last remaining child from following in his older brother's footsteps. So Dargo was withdrawn from his training sibko and relegated to the lower castes, destined never to be a warrior. It was a dishonor that the younger child could not bare. When his parents were away, the young boy tried to slit his own throat in front of the shrine of Turkina as penance for his shame. As he lay bleeding in front of the altar, Dargo experienced what many loremasters would call a vision. His recollection of that omen signified a new beginning for the boy, as he was able to patch up his bleeding throat in order to begin life anew. From then on, Dargo threw his energies into other pursuits, if he could not gain recognition as a warrior, then perhaps as a tech or even a scientist?

  As the years passed, Dargo was able to gain admittance to the scientist caste. Although not as glorious as a warrior, scientists were an integral part of Clan society; they would create the technologies that would enable the warrior caste to conquer worlds. Thus, in some ways Dargo had fulfilled his ambitions for he became a renowned scientist for Clan Jade Falcon. 

  Dargo's specialty wasn't the creation of new weapons for the Clan; rather it was the study of microbiology that he excelled in. He got so good at it that scientists from other Clans would regularly confer with him as to his latest findings in order to treat diseases that would continuously plague the inhabitants of the Clan homeworlds. Dargo in fact became so valuable that while he was stationed in the Jade Falcon medical center in Ironhold, the Steel Vipers landed an entire cluster and attempted a Trial of Possession in order to bring him into their fold. After a hard fought battle, the Falcon garrison prevailed and kept Dargo as a scientist for their Clan. It was rare that an actual raid by a rival Clan just to get at someone who was not of the warrior caste and so therefore, the Falcons knew that Dargo had to be protected well. It was indeed ironic in a Clan where warriors remained at the apex of power that a scientist of such low stature was considered to be so important that warriors would be willing to die in order to keep him.

  Rubbing the childhood scar around his neck as he walked, Dargo could not help but sense a feeling of satisfaction at his most recent work. The papers that he was carrying contained a full report of the incident that occurred with the Dark Wing Cluster.

  Less than a month before, a Jade Falcon naval patrol had intercepted what looked like a Clan Wolf merchant jumpship that had strayed into Falcon space. The jumpship crew tried to resist but their vessel was disabled by the Falcon dropship. Then a strange thing happened, as the Falcon warriors boarded the jumpship, they were instantly stricken by an unknown chemical or biological agent that physically disabled them seconds after boarding. The contagion spread aboard the Falcon vessel but not before the remaining crew was able to destroy the Wolf merchant ship before it got away. The last thing that the Falcon crew did was to send out a warning not to board their ship without protection from chemical weapons.

  The dead ship drifted for days until it was picked up by a troopship belonging to the Dark Wing Cluster, a _solahma_ unit made up of old and freebirth warriors. Apparently, the commander of the troopship had failed to heed the automated warnings not to be boarded and the entire vessel was also stricken. Within hours, all of the crew as well as the bulk of the warriors that had belonged to the cluster were dead. Rescue vessels that had picked up the troopship's distress call came in cautiously and special teams of scientists equipped with hostile environment suits made the perilous journey into the heart of the dead troopship. What they found was a grisly sight; dead bodies were bloated as yellow puss seeped from their orifices; blackened limbs and blood drenched eyes cried out in silent agony. This was no ordinary disease.

  As Dargo rounded a corner, he could not help but to try to take his mind off the grisly details of what he had uncovered and instead tried to focus on the report he was going to make to Star Colonel Helmer.

  Walking along the underground corridors of the ancient castle brians, Dargo could not help but think about the history of Apollo, the world that he was in. Apollo was once the homeworld of the dreaded Rim Worlds Republic, the seat of power for House Amaris. It was also one of the first worlds targeted in the Jade Falcon advance towards Terra during the Clan invasion. Most of its inhabitants were shipped off to toil as slaves, befitting a people that were so despised by the Clans.

  Apollo however, had a highly advanced infrastructure that included old Star League bunkers that the Falcons were now using as scientific laboratories as a substitute for their facilities in the Clan homeworlds. It made much more sense due to the fact that Apollo was closer to the Inner-Sphere front than Clan space was.

  As Dargo got to the end of the corridor, he came upon a massive steel door that was flanked by two fully armed Jade Falcon warriors. From their massive frames he could tell that they were of the Elemental genotype; although the guards were not wearing their trademark power armor, they were still immensely formidable. Dargo winced slightly as the guards searched him thoroughly. Despite being one of the most preeminent scientists among all the Clans, he was still treated only slightly better than a serf.

  Once the guards were satisfied that he carried no weapon, they opened the massive doors and escorted him through. As Dargo walked into a high-ceilinged room, he noticed that it was bare save for a massive oak table in which two figures sat. Both wore the jade green field uniforms of Falcon warriors. One was a young male of about twenty years of age with nondescript features and was inputting figures in a noteputer while the other was a woman that despite her advancing age; projected an aura of great intelligence, cunning and power. Although he did not recognize the man, every Jade Falcon and practically every Clanner knew who the woman was.

  Dargo instantly bowed in supplication. "Khan Marthe Pryde. This is an unexpected honor."

  "You may rise."  The supreme leader of the Jade Falcons gestured with her hand.

  "Thank you my Khan." Dargo rose and stood at attention.

  "I know you were expecting a conference with Star Colonel Helmer and his staff as to your findings so I hope I have not disappointed you."

  "Not at all my Khan. In fact, it is a great honor for me to receive one so revered and for just a very minor report." Dargo smiled but instantly went rigid at attention when his Khan did not return the gesture.

  "I'm afraid this is not just a minor report, Dargo. When an entire cluster of my warriors are killed off by some sort of virus, even a _solahma_ unit, it would naturally attract my personal attention, _quiaff_?"

  "_Aff_ my Khan. You are correct, as always."

  "Let us dispense with the sycophantism and get to business shall we?" Khan Marthe Pryde intoned.

  "Indeed my Khan. I have good news to report, the virus has been isolated and we have identified its characteristics. It is apparently a modified strain of bubonic plague but that is a very basic definition; the virus in fact, exhibits multiple mutations upon contact with a host."

  "Have you come up with a vaccine yet?" Khan Pryde asked.

  "_Neg_ my Khan. The virus' very nature is making the process of creating a vaccine difficult at this time. We need to do further research in order to identify and isolate the mutagens that enable the virus to mutate rapidly. We may need another two years to do that." Dargo explained.

  "That is unacceptable Dargo." Khan Pryde stated. "Whoever engineered this virus may have plans to deliver it and strike at our worlds. By our calculations, unless we find a vaccine within three months time, the entire Clan may be decimated."

  "I shall double our efforts Khan Pryde. We will not fail the followers of the great Turkina."

  "This virus, it seems unique; something tailor-fitted specifically to take on the Clans." The Khan of the Falcons mused. "Any clue as to its origins?"

  "There is a possibility my Khan, from my researches on the nature of this pestilence that the virus may have originated from the Clan homeworlds." Dargo answered.

  "What? Explain."

  "Many years ago, in my studies as an apprentice to a preeminent scientist, I made some research on animal diseases as my thesis. A virus with similar characteristics seemed to have infected a number of swamp frogs in Dagda at that time. The similarities were the symptoms themselves; the virus would attack the respiratory, circulatory and brain functions all at the same time, mutating rapidly so as to cause maximum havoc to the amphibian's bodies. But that memory hadn't crossed my mind until now because that virus seemed unique to the frogs and was harmless to humans." Dargo explicated.

  Khan Marthe Pryde seemed lost in thought for a moment, then she rapidly went back to her query mode. "Was there anyone who helped you in your research? Any fledgling scientist from another Clan perhaps?"

  "Why come to think of it, yes. My former best friend Thucil of Clan Goliath Scorpion. He was an apprentice like myself at that time. We ultimately became good friends even though our Clans were different. We traded many information on microbiology on the Clan chatterweb." Dargo answered.

  "Your former best friend? Why aren't you friends anymore?"

  "It was because he disappeared several years ago, my Khan. He was onboard a merchant vessel that disappeared en route to the Pentagon worlds. The Scorpions tried to search for him because he was one of the preeminent scientists in microbiology but it was in vain. The merchant vessel was never found. Everyone assumed that it had been attacked and destroyed by the Dark Caste, we know they were active at that area during time when the Burrocks were dealing with them." 

  "Interesting." Khan Pryde seemed lost in thought again before she spoke. "That will be all for now Dargo. Your efforts have been noted and we await further word on your research."

  "Thank you my Khan." Drago turned and headed out the door with the Elemental guards in tow.

  "One last thing Dargo." Khan Pryde said to the departing scientist. "If you come up with a vaccine, your name and deeds will be added to the _Remembrance_. I can assure you."

  As the scientist departed with a smile on his face, Khan Marthe Pryde turned to the man who sat beside her. "Conclusions, Ixtil?" She asked.

  The man whose name was Ixtil was fast becoming a legend among Khan Pryde's command staff. It was said that this warrior was a prodigy when it came to military tactics and strategy. Many in the staff even believed that Ixtil had photographic memory. His callsign was Mentat, the name used for human computers in some ancient novel from Earth's past.

  "No definite conclusions as of yet Khan, but I have formulated a number of interesting theories." Ixtil answered his superior.

  "Lets hear them. Do you think any of the other Clans might be behind this biological weapon?" Khan Pryde asked.

  "Highly unlikely my Khan. Despite the fact that the Jade Falcons have many enemies, the warrior castes of the other Clans would not go to these extremely dishonorable lengths to destroy us." Ixtil explained.

  "I'll accept that for now. Do you have any theories as to who is behind this and as to where we may find them?"

  "A number of theories I have my Khan, but no definite answers. Based on the forensic examinations and black box records of the infected patrol vessel we can deduce where the merchant ship may have come from."

  "Where?"

  "My theory is that the intercepted merchant ship came from the Dark Nebula." Ixtil answered.

  Marthe Pryde raised an eyebrow. "The Dark Nebula? Camelot Command?"

  "_Aff_ my Khan. The merchant vessel did not have sufficient range to traverse the deep Periphery nor would it have the fuel to get past our patrols to the Inner-Sphere front. Only in the Dark Nebula could it have come from. Camelot Command has got the facilities to refuel jumpships that are not Jade Falcon as well as the possibility of having a biological research laboratory that cannot be detected by our intelligence units." Ixtil stated.

  "If my memory serves me right, I do believe that the mercenary unit Snord's Irregulars abandoned the station at the start of the Federated Commonwealth Civil War. Also, records in our astronomical survey charts were apparently destroyed at around the same time." Khan Pryde mused.

  "_Aff_. My conclusions are that the Irregulars used a very nondescript computer virus to destroy the exact location of Camelot Command on our records. The virus only attacked a miniscule portion of our astronomical database that consequently was undetected until the damage was done. In fact, by the time we did detect it, the virus had already infected the other Clans and large portions of the Inner-Sphere via HPG and the chatterweb." The young warrior explained.

  "How very convenient. So this means that the key to everything may very well lie within the Dark Nebula. But since we have no way of finding the exact location of Camelot Command, it may take years for us to pinpoint it. By then it may very well be too late." Khan Pryde fumed.

  "Not necessarily my Khan. I have been working on the problem and we may in fact be able to track incoming vessels into the Dark Nebula. If there is a functioning base there, it will need constant re-supply. If we are to monitor every known merchant ship in the vicinity, then we may have a chance to find it. Already I have amassed travel records from hundreds of merchant ships traveling in that sector. With your permission, I would like to post more patrols and tell our naval ships to be on the lookout for suspicious civilian activity; anything out of the ordinary." Ixtil requested.

  "_Aff_. Do that. We may yet get to the bottom of this problem in time." Khan Pryde said to her protégé. "You have done phenomenally well, young warrior. I hope you will soon be able to participate in the Bloodname trials; they are scheduled for next month. I shall nominate you myself if you so wish."

  "Thank you my Khan." Ixtil could not help but be pleasantly surprised.

  "That will be all for now then. I have a meeting with Star Colonel Helmer and his staff in five minutes." Khan Pryde rose from her seat and was about to leave the room before she turned to face the young prodigy. "By the way, The Dark Wing Cluster needs to be reconstituted. I know you also have an uncanny eye for spotting talent, Ixtil. Who do you suggest for its commander?"

  Ixtil didn't bat an eye. "I was expecting you to ask me this question, my Khan. I suggest Star Captain Joanna. She is head instructor for our warrior sibkos in Ironhold at the moment."

  "Star Captain Joanna? Excellent choice Ixtil." Khan Marthe Pryde smiled. "Joanna was formerly with Aidan Pryde and the Falcon Guards. She is a most accomplished warrior. Very good. I will see to it that she gets transferred back to the Falcon Occupation Zone immediately. Aside from her obvious talents, is there any other reason why you would choose her?"

  "_Aff_ my Khan. Credible rumors on the chatterweb have stated that Natasha Kerensky is alive and is leading a unit called the Black Widows. Having the killer of the Black Widow on our side would be an excellent contingency should this so-called reincarnation ever challenge us." Ixtil answered.

  Khan Marthe Pryde was clearly impressed. This lad was very, very good.


	6. V

  Emil Sanderson was just happy that he had a job. Every morning his wife would drop him off in front of the Luxor office building in downtown Tharkad and he would go about his daily routine. The Federated Commonwealth Civil War was now over and everybody was trying to get back to as normal a life as possible. Narrowly avoiding the draft of the LAAF just before the Civil War began because of his age, Emil kept his job as a security guard with Trident Security Specialists Incorporated, a small firm that was started by his uncle over a decade back. Being a former police officer, Emil was preparing to coast a few more years until he was eligible for retirement.

  As he entered the double glass doors of the ground floor of the building, Emil walked along a newly remodeled hallway to the guard station just before the elevators and walked towards his fellow security personnel. Teddy Lobago and Neil Forevin were already at the front desk beside the reception area, chatting with one of the office secretaries.

  "Good morning everyone. Sorry to be late." Emil smiled as he placed his lunch box underneath the guard table beside the metal detector.

  "It's alright Emil. Had a rough night?" Neil joked. He was a recent addition to the security crew, having just been discharged as an infantryman with the LAAF.

  "Very funny." Emil retorted. "My eldest boy got the flu and Suzi had to take him to the clinic first."

  "Just kidding Emil. It's no problem, I think this is going to be just another boring day." Teddy Lobago sighed. He was also a former cop. His thick black beard and growing potbelly made him closer to Emil's age.

  "Hey did you guys notice that they are rebuilding the Grand Steiner mall just down the block?" Neil asked the other two as he adjusted the nightstick on his belt. 

  "Yeah, I can't wait till they reopen. I hope they'll put in a McDenny's at the food court. I sure miss their trademark grand-slam breakfasts since the last outlet in this city was destroyed in the war." Emil answered.

  "Don't talk about food." Teddy Lobago snorted as he sat down behind the desk. "I'm on a diet."

  Neil decided to change the subject. "Guys, I've been meaning to ask you a question since you've both been at this longer than I've had."

  "Fire away Neil." Emil said.

  "It's just that I've been here for two months now and this office just feels weird to me." Neil mused.

  "In what way?" Teddy asked.

  "Nothing major really." Neil explained. "Its just that I wonder why do they need to have guards like us in this place. I think this company employs no more than twenty people and yet there are five guards here on the ground floor level as well as two guards on each floor. With four floors, that's another eight guards in this building. Almost half the people in this whole building are security guards! Why all the security? I was told that this was nothing more than a computer company and yet every one of us guards is fully armed to the teeth."

  Emil looked down at the small machine pistol strapped to his hip holster. "We follow orders. The owners of this company wanted metal detectors at the entrance as well as fully armed security personnel. We complied with the contract."

  "Yeah, but why though? What's so important about this frigging' place anyway? We have orders to shoot to kill any unauthorized personnel for chrissakes!" Neil still wanted answers.

  "Kid, I asked the same questions when I started here awhile back too." Teddy sighed.

  "And what did they say?" Neil waited for the answer.

  "They told me 'don't ask again' and I didn't. What's important is that you have a good paying job while there are others out there starving in the streets what with all these recent wars sapping our economy and so many people dead. So count your blessings and shut up, laddie." Teddy explained so as not to antagonize the young man.

  As Teddy Lobago finished his sentence, two figures walked through the double glass doors. Emil noticed them first. One was a man and the other was a woman. The man seemed to be tall and well built; he had a pencil-thin mustache and had slick black hair. The woman had fiery red hair tied back in a ponytail and had a sensuous beauty about her. Both seemed to be wearing long black leather overcoats and they were carrying large duffel bags on each hand. The morning rays of light from the glass entrance reflected off their sunglasses as they both approached the guard desk.

  This didn't seem like a typical day at all to the three security guards. Since they all had worked in the building for some months now, every single employee of the company was already familiar to them. But this was the first time that two strangers had ever ventured into the building. Each man therefore acted differently depending on their individual personalities. Neil Forevin smiled due to the fact that this was a welcome break from the monotony and proceeded to usher the couple through the metal detector; Teddy Lobago sighed and stayed sitting on his stool but Emil Sanderson went instantly on alert; he sensed that something was amiss, the hairs on the back of his neck pricked up as he kept his hand on the walkie-talkie on his belt.

  As the woman went through the metal detector first, a loud beep from the sensor indicated that she was indeed carrying something metallic within the folds of her clothing. As Neil came over to search her, the young woman instantly made a sideways kick that pinned the surprised guard to a nearby marble column. A split-second later, she instantly thrust out a knife from her right hand and she plunged the blade into Neil's exposed Adam's-apple. With exceptional strength, she thrust the blade in all the way to its hilt.

  Neil began to gurgle and choke on his own blood as the knife impaled his throat to the column. Emil let out a cry of terror as he backed off while taking the walkie-talkie from his belt. Teddy Lobago sat frozen on his stool; his mind seemed unable to believe what was happening.

  Within a blur, the couple acted again. The man drew a Sternsnacht heavy pistol from his shoulder holster and leapt up upon the desk where Teddy Lobago was sitting and quickly shot the petrified guard point blank in the face. Emil dropped the walkie-talkie and tried to draw the machine pistol from his hip holster but the woman caught up to him; she let out a spinning kick that cracked his forward kneecap and sent him sprawling across the granite floor, his machine pistol clattering away from him.

  As Emil tried to pull himself up, he let out a cry of mercy as the woman leapt on top of him and put both her arms around his neck. It was then that the sound of a loud snap could be heard after which Emil flopped onto the floor, his body convulsing in death spasms.

  Anne Zimmerman was the secretary manning the receptionist's desk at the entrance. She was only nineteen years of age, working temporarily in order to pay for her college tuition. Despite her youth, Anne did not panic when she saw the security guards being murdered. The part-time college student stayed calm as she punched the fire alarm button even as her eyes caught the mustached man with the black overcoat aiming his pistol at her. One second later, the alarm bells rang all over the building but Anne did not hear it because the bullet from the man's heavy pistol had passed through her left eye and exploded out of the back of her skull.

  Two other uniformed security guards who where hanging near the maintenance room by the elevators instantly heard the shots and the alarm and began to run out towards the entrance, machine pistols at the ready.

  As the two remaining guards rounded the corner, they came face to face with the man in black. He smiled at them as he fired his dual Sternsnacht heavy pistols from both hands, gunslinger style. The shot from his left pistol tore off the first guard's leg; the shocked guard looked at his bloody stump before falling over. The second guard was instantly hit by the massive slug in his abdomen that sent him flying across the hallway, his machine pistol spraying wildly from his already dead fingers. The bullets that came out from the dual Sternsnachts were not your ordinary kind; they were in fact .357 Magnum slugs, their steel tips were scooped out and cross-hatched in order to cause maximum damage to the target; they would flatten like metal pancakes upon impact. This type of customized bullet was popularly known as a dum-dum.

  James Wilbert was a computer programmer, though overweight and bespectacled, he was nevertheless loved by his subordinates. At the last minute, he decided to go out to buy some doughnuts for the accounting department. As the elevator doors opened on the ground level, he saw a tall man dressed in black shoot two guards in the lobby. Being a physical coward, Wilbert punched all the buttons in the elevator's control panel, hoping the doors would close and bring him back up to safety before the man would notice. Since the fire alarm was blaring at full blast, Wilbert thought that the man would be so distracted that he would still have a slim chance for life.

  The man in black turned when he heard the faint ping of an elevator door; it was actually the second ping indicating that the lift would be going back up because he didn't hear the previous one on the account that he was shooting people. He quickly saw an overweight man wearing glasses frantically pushing at the elevator controls, hoping to get out of there. By the time he was able to bring his dual pistols to bear, the door was already halfway closed. This did not stop the man from firing more than a dozen shots into the thick elevator doors, his pistol rounds making huge dents but failing to penetrate due to the fact that they were dum-dums.

  The man in black soon heard a woman's voice in his earpiece. It was faint because the alarm was continuing its ear-splitting wail. "Clavell, is the ground floor clear?"

  "Ground floor clear." Jimmy Clavell acknowledged through his throat mike. He silently cursed himself for allowing a target to warn the people upstairs. Oh well, then they do it the hard way.

  "Cover me." The woman spoke again. It was the voice of his superior, Captain Natasha Kerensky.

  As Clavell walked back towards the entrance, he noticed that Natasha had taken off her black overcoat and was loading a magazine into her H&K MP559S sub-machinegun that she had retrieved from her duffel bag. Dubbed the "Blacklight", it was the weapon of choice for some in Wolf's Dragoon's Seventh Kommando special-forces unit. Being able to fire its 10mm APHE shells in three-round bursts, the MP559S also had a built-in integral JAF-09 flash suppressor that enabled the weapon to be used silently in close-combat situations. After cocking the bolt on her weapon, she slung it over her Kevlar-padded shoulder and proceeded over to the receptionist's desk. Once he reloaded his massive pistols and placed them back into his shoulder holsters, Clavell then readied an identical sub-machinegun after retrieving it from his own duffel bag.

  As Clavell kept watch on the elevators, Natasha accessed the building's main computer program and initiated a command override on its controls; within a span of a few minutes, the fire alarm was deactivated and permanently switched off. Heavy steel bolts locked the glass entrance doors firmly in place and all but one of the elevators was rendered inactive. The fire doors leading to the emergency stairwells were also locked electronically. Everyone within the building was now trapped inside unless they knew the command password.

  James Wilbert got off the second floor and was able to warn everyone there. As the loud ping indicating that one of the elevator doors was about to open, the two security guards on that floor opened fire with their machine pistols, spraying the slightly opened elevator doors with 9mm slugs. As they emptied their magazines and hurriedly began to reload with fresh clips, they noticed that the elevator stood empty, bullet holes seemed to honeycomb both the internal compartment as well as the elevator doors. Two office workers, a balding man in a dark suit and a young accountant, stood by the slightly opened door leading into the office suites, their curiosity overcoming their fear.

  As both guards let out a sigh of relief, thinking that it was all much ado about nothing, the ceiling seemed to collapse beside them as Natasha and Clavell dropped down from the ventilation shaft right on top of the two guards. The first guard choked to death as Natasha swung her gloved left fist in a hammer blow that landed right on his throat while second guard's head exploded from a point-blank burst of Clavell's sub-machinegun.

  The two curiosity seekers that watched this entire scene of carnage acted in two totally different ways. The balding man seemed rooted to his spot for a split second and then tried feebly to back away while his younger co-worker instantly turned tail and tried to get back into the suites where they came from. The two assailants also acted in different ways: Clavell instantly dropped to one knee while tucking his weapon close to his shoulder and opened fire while Natasha instinctively got into a Weaver stance; legs spread out in a manner similar to that of a martial artist with knees slightly bent as she extended her sub-machinegun towards the target and fired simultaneously. Both the office worker's heads instantly exploded before they got through the door and their bodies flopped forward, opening the doors even further.

  Taking full precautions, Natasha threw a flash-bang stun grenade into the suite before she and Clavell moved in. Once the deafening boom occurred, the two assailants instantly came through the door, both rolling sideways in different directions as they entered the main suite. The office in fact, was one big room with desks and chairs everyone could see everyone else. As they both ventured inside, they noticed that some office workers were lying on the floor, stunned and dazed by the flash-bang grenade while others hid underneath their desks, screaming and crying in absolute terror.

  Natasha and Clavell shot everyone that they could find. First, the ones that were totally exposed lying on the floor were shot execution style as both mercenaries moved along either side of the room, shooting anyone underneath them as well. One lady stood up from under her desk, her hands covering her bleeding ears, wailing incessantly like a banshee until she was cut down by simultaneous bursts from both assailants. Another lady, who was fearful of being raped, had a laser pistol in her handbag which she always carried for that eventuality, regained her courage and composure. She instantly drew the weapon as she got up from her hiding place and fired wildly at Clavell's direction.

  Clavell was able to sidestep a near miss as the woman's laser pistol unleashed a pencil-thin red light that scorched a wall just inches away from his shoulders. He instinctively dropped to one knee and returned fire but his weapon was empty. Clavell cursed as he kicked down a desk in front of him and got behind it for cover.

  From the other side, the Black Widow instantly saw what had happened but there were a number of shoulder-high obstacles that blocked a clear shot at the woman. In a matter of seconds, Natasha bounded over several desks and fired as she leapt forward over the last desk right beside the woman. The lady's head exploded like a burst watermelon as Natasha finally had a clear shot at her.

  With a curse, Clavell got up and began to sweep his side of the room with his newly reloaded weapon. The MP559S was equipped with superb Doppler sights that allowed highly accurate aiming. In addition to its ruggedness and dependability, the Blacklight was the only sub-machinegun that could fire even with a closed bolt. It was no wonder why the Dragoons swore by it.

  James Wilbert was able to regain his senses and managed to lock himself inside the small bathroom beside the main suite. Clavell saw the fat, bespectacled man get inside the toilet just as he was finishing his sweep. The former Wolf's Dragoon instantly faced the bathroom door and fired three short bursts that peppered the door full of bullet holes. As he kicked in the severely damaged aperture, Clavell noticed Wilbert sitting on the toilet, his intestines hanging out from his torn stomach, his death mask a study in surprise, shock and pain. It was apparent that his bowels had opened up too.

  As he turned around in order to get away from the potent stench of blood and excrement, Clavell noticed that Natasha was already rummaging through the manager's desk. After a few minutes, the Black Widow retrieved a data disk from the desk drawer and stowed it into her all-black jumpsuit.

  "We got it." Natasha said as a matter of fact.

  "Floor is clear. Now what?" Clavell asked.

  "Return to the ground floor and set the charges." Natasha ordered.

  "Roger. Wilco."

  Later that day, some witnesses of the Luxor Building bombing in Tharkad noticed that a man and a woman, both wearing black coats, had exited the building just before it exploded. By the evening, expert pundits in the tri-vid news reports stated that the incident might have been a terrorist bombing by forces still loyal to Katrina Steiner-Davion, the deposed ruler of the now defunct Federated Commonwealth. 

  Over thirty people were believed killed when the entire building collapsed in a heap of steel, dust and concrete. Their grieving families held a protest at the mayor's office a few weeks later, demanding compensation as well as forwarding a petition with over ten thousand signatures so that the city would create a memorial where the Luxor Building once stood.

  Katrina's younger brother and current Archon of the Lyran Alliance, Peter Steiner-Davion, publicly announced that there were forces intent on destabilizing the rebuilding of Tharkad and that a planet-wide manhunt would commence in order to bring the murderous perpetrators to justice.


	7. VI

  Lost dreams.

  Most of the general population would normally consider rulers to be both a source of inspiration and envy. Many people believed that rulers of nations and states would live in splendor and quiet contentment. When these very rulers would go mad with homicidal rage and plunge their very states into war, their people would often wonder if all that absolute power in their leaders grasps would ultimately compel them to seek more; hence a destructive cycle. The people would sometimes ask themselves why was it that despite the fact that their leaders live in luxury and elegance while they toil in the dust for the improvement of the state, why would these very rulers not be content with their own lives, why not be content with what you have?

  These very thoughts were plaguing the mind of ComStar's Precentor Martial at that very moment. Sitting in his office as the sun's rays drove horizontal shafts of parallel light through the partially vented Venetian blinds in the windows of his office, the man who had once been the ray of hope for the Inner-Sphere brooded while waiting.

  His name was Victor Steiner-Davion and he was not happy. As he ran his fingers along his hair, once golden blond but now teaming with strands of white, Victor could not help but constantly think about what might have been.

  It seemed to be nothing more than a distant thought now. Memories of being raised by his father and mother; shards of time that would sometimes come back to him as if it were just yesterday. But then the day's problems would once again intrude onto the happy thoughts and he would be floating back to a dangerous reality.

  Victor was the heir of a hopeful alliance between two of the most powerful houses of the Inner-Sphere, the militaristic Federated Suns and the economically powerful Lyran Commonwealth. As the newly formed Federated Commonwealth began to conquer nearby states, a dream of a united humanity, not seen since the days of the first Star League, seemed to be within his father's grasp. His father Hanse Davion once told him that he would be the ruler of all humanity and that he would either lead them all into a golden age or plunge them back into war and devastation.

  Just as final victory seemed to be in his family's grasp, the ghosts of the first Star League returned. After centuries of exile, the heirs of Kerensky came back as the Clans. With their superior technology and alien ways, the Clans cut a swath of destruction across the Sphere and only the timely alliance between ancient enemies had saved the successor states. Faced with a threat that could destroy them all, the great houses of the Inner-Sphere united and formed a second Star League.

  With a resounding victory over the Clans that finally stopped the invasion, the Federated Commonwealth seemed destined once again to lead humanity. After all, it was Victor's leadership with the newly revamped Star League Defense Forces that spelled ultimate victory over the Clans. But alas, it was not to be. Victor's sister, Katrina Steiner-Davion, took over and became the sole ruler of the Federated Commonwealth while he was away. The wily Katrina wooed disgruntled elements among the Steiner nobility to help strengthen her own position but it would also prove to be the beginning of the end for the Commonwealth.

  As military units within the Federated Commonwealth began to take sides, Victor made the fateful decision to forcibly remove his sister from the throne and soon plunged the entire Commonwealth into a civil war that raged across hundreds of worlds. Millions perished and whole units were destroyed in a maelstrom of death and destruction. When it was over, the dreams of his long-dead parents lay in tatters: the once mighty Federated Commonwealth was permanently partitioned between the Lyran Alliance and the Federated Suns. Victor was to have no hand in ruling any of these states. The task of presiding over and rebuilding these now separate empires would be handled by his two younger siblings, Peter and Yvonne Steiner-Davion.

  Groomed to be humanity's most powerful ruler, Victor had never known or experienced the quiet contentment that only a civilian and a family man could truly understand. Raised and taught nothing except politics and war, Victor could have never even grasped the simple pleasures in life; his upbringing was military conferences and palace intrigues. In many ways, Victor envied the lowly civilian, to be anonymous and just to exist would have been heaven to him.

  Problems were always the order of the day. Victor was already exhausted from attending the public memorial service for the victims of the Luxor Building bombing earlier that morning. It was his first public appearance in as many months but it was necessary to stand side by side with his brother Peter due to the fact that it was extremely critical to show an image of strength and solidarity to their potential enemies.

  More problems. A few weeks ago there were reports of an incident in the Free Worlds League capital of Atreus. The imperial family had denied the news of a rumored assassination attempt but Star League intelligence reports indicated that there were casualties among the Marik family. All of Victor's personal queries to the Captain-General, Thomas Marik, were met with cold silence. Official reports from the ambassador of the Free Worlds League said that Thomas Marik was in seclusion over personal problems and could not be disturbed. Victor knew that the Star League conference was only a few months away; would this have a potentially catastrophic impact on that? Would Thomas Marik even attend the conference?

  Deep in the back of Victor's mind were many secrets. Secrets that very few people would ever know. Such was the price of rulership; the illusion was as important as reality. Victor knew for a fact that Thomas Marik was an impostor; his seemingly miraculous reappearance after the bombing that scarred his face and killed his father and of the incompatibility of his DNA with that of the Marik bloodline due to the fact that his now dead son Joshua was once being treated for leukemia by Commonwealth scientists who then concluded that his son did not carry a single trace of the Marik family's DNA code. For the sake of stability Victor kept the lie going. It was important during that time for he could not have afforded a fractured Free Worlds League. But now with this latest incident, more questions began to arise: What happened to the real Thomas Marik? Did anyone else know about the Marik impostor?

  The shafts of light entering into Victor's office began to pale as Tharkad's yellow sun had already begun to set. Winter would be coming sooner than expected. From his vantage point, Victor could see the spires of new skyscrapers being constructed; the city was busy rebuilding for the upcoming Star League conference that was to take place late in the year. Even these thoughts of hope soon turned dark as well. Victor knew that the Star League he had helped to create was already beginning to unravel now that the Clan threat had all but gone. It seemed nothing more than a temporary alliance as the successor states began to jockey for power once more. Would they be able to hold it together or would their greed and lust for supremacy shatter it once more? And if the Star League was dissolved, what then? Would a new conflagration erupt? Who would start it?

  These dark and worrying thoughts added more wrinkles to Victor's already tired face as his aide Galen Cox entered the office.

  Victor got up from his chair and welcomed his long-time friend and confidant. "Galen. Welcome back to Tharkad. How was the jump?"

  "Tiring as always, Victor. Visiting over a dozen planets in a few weeks time takes a lot out of a man, even a well-traveled one like myself." Galen smiled as he sat down on the guest chair.

  Lieutenant General Galen Cox was one of the heroes of the Clan War, a superb mechwarior and invaluable ally to Victor. Galen had once assumed a false identity named Gerard Cranston in order to fool his enemies into believing that he was dead but now that the war was over, he no longer traveled by that moniker. One habit that Galen did decide to keep from his Cranston days was wearing his beard; he felt that he looked more elegant this way. The other habit was more professional, Galen was the Head of Intelligence for the Star League as well; he was Victor's eyes and ears in terms of rumors and information. And on this day he had some very bad news.

  "Let's get it over with." Victor needed to get down to business. He was tired.

  "From the top then." Galen answered. "Intel believes that either one or both children of Thomas Marik has been assassinated."

  Victor could barely hide his grief. "Oh God. Do we have confirmation on that?"

  "At this point, none. But we should know the full story sooner or later. An incident of this magnitude should reveal itself in due course."

  "I hope that when the truth is finally revealed that it will not be too late. Do we know any potential factions that might have been behind this?" Victor asked.

  "The list is quite huge I'm afraid." Galen sighed. "From Word of Blake, Sun-Tzu Liao or maybe even a disaffected FWL noble intent on gaining power, we are simply not too sure at this point. My personal opinion is that it is the Blakists although a source tells me that it may have even been a third party hired by any of the usual suspects."

  "The Star League conference is only a few months away. This will complicate matters at the very least. Theodore Kurita and Sun-Tzu seem intent on backing Thomas Marik's bid to become First Lord." Victor mused.

  "That is the least of our problems right now." Galen looked down.

  Despite his fatigue, Victor began to straighten up in his chair. "What do you mean?"

  "We have noticed an increase in Jade Falcon naval activity in their occupation zone. A large number of Falcon warships, seventy percent of their naval reserve in fact, are now moving into the area." Galen said as a matter of fact.

  "Is my sister and the Wolf Clan stirring up trouble again?" Victor guessed.

  "It doesn't appear that way. The Wolf Clan occupation zone seems quiet for now."

  "What then?"

  "Something that could be far worse. We are intercepting coded transmissions from a number of Clan merchant vessels via HPG. We were only able to crack the code a few days ago. That's why I hurried back to Tharkad to meet you." Galen explained.

  "Oh God, now what?" Victor groaned. This was going to be a long meeting.

  "Judging from our analysis of the situation it appears that we may have a confirmation as to the reasons why the Falcons have placed a biohazard alert and purposely destroyed a number of commercial vessels in their area. It appears that a sizable bulk of the lower castes, either led by the merchants or the scientists or both, are preparing a coup of some sort; possibly with the use of some biological weapon to wipe out the warrior castes."

  Victor could hardly believe it. "Could that be possible? How can the scientist caste run a covert biological weapons program without the warrior castes knowing about it?"

  "Well the scientists would need to have a base of operations that the warriors would not know about. The merchants have jumpships that can be used for supply and transportation; either they neutralized the warrior contingent on these ships or some warriors may have turned traitor. With their loss against us on Strana-Mechty, some warriors my feel that the Clan cause is now irrevocably lost." Galen stated.

  "So where could this base be? The Clan homeworlds? The deep Periphery?" Victor asked.

  "It seems that the Falcons are trying to find out as well." Galen answered. "Based on their naval deployments, it seems that the base lies in the Dark Nebula: Camelot Command to be exact."

  "Camelot Command? The former base of Snord's Irregulars?"

  "Yes." Galen confirmed it.

  "Galen, I seem to find it a little too convenient for you to come up with an exact conclusion like this based on very scant evidence. Even one with your talents would not have pieced this together in so short a time." Despite not having any rest for almost twenty-four hours, Victor's mind was still working at peak performance; he had a talent for coming up with the right conclusions.

  "You're right, Victor." Galen closed his eyes. The truth was going to hurt. "The final piece of this puzzle was obtained just yesterday in this very city."

  "What do you mean?" Victor's eyes went wide with horror. "The terrorist bombing of the Luxor Building?"

  Galen sighed. "It wasn't a terrorist bombing. The Luxor Building was actually a front for an intelligence gathering group. I sent in a team of operatives to secure some information yesterday."

  "Intelligence group? A team of operatives? Jesus Christ." Victor's hands began to tremble.

  "After partially decoding these Clan merchant transmissions, we traced it to an intelligence gathering front in the Luxor Building. We had a general knowledge that messages were being decoded by a computer firm and then passed on to operatives in the Inner-Sphere." Galen continued.

  "So what you are trying to tell me was that this computer company was actually a communications relay for these coup plotters?" Victor asked.

  "Yes. It seems that based on the information that we retrieved it is apparently a small group of renegade merchants and scientists based in Camelot Command. Once they have delivered the biological weapon, both the Clans and the Inner-Sphere would be so devastated that it would be easy for them to gain power. And then the Clan invasion would begin anew under their leadership." Galen answered.

  "Are you saying that every one of those people killed in the Luxor Building was a renegade Clan spy?" Victor was aghast.

  "No. I am quite sure there were a large number of innocent civilians there." Galen looked sadly at Victor. "But we needed to make sure. So the orders were to spare no one."

  "Who gave the order?" Victor demanded.

  Galen stayed silent.

  "Who gave the order!" Victor had finally lost his temper as he partially got up from his chair.

  "I did." Galen said softly.

  Victor slumped back in his chair. He was stunned. "Oh God, Galen. I had attended the memorial service with Peter just hours ago. Now you are telling me that it was us, it was we who killed our own people."

  Galen did not speak for a long time. When he did it was barely a whisper. "There are times that we have to do terrible things so that our people can sleep soundly in their beds at night. What I ordered was a terrible crime which I will have to live with for the rest of my life."

  "Could we have done this in another way?" Victor groaned. So this was the price of rulership, to be responsible for the deaths of innocents and then having to cover it up.

  "I'm afraid not." Galen's eyes stayed downcast. "We needed to make the hit that day otherwise they might have known that we were on to them. I couldn't take the chance."

  "So now what?" Victor wanted to get this meeting over with. It was all too much. "We have our intel but what good is it? I made a solemn promise that no SLDF troops would go into Clan space again otherwise it would be war. Anyway, we don't have the troops to do it."

  "There is an alternative." Galen answered.

  "What?"

  "For the past several months I have been assembling a black ops unit specifically for missions such as this. Some of them are former SLDF soldiers while others are mercenaries. If we send them into the Dark Nebula, we have plausible deniability." Galen explained.

  "But we don't even know what's out there. You are asking this covert unit to perform a suicide mission. You know that we cannot afford to send any naval assets at this time." Victor protested.

  "It has a very low chance of success but we need to try." Galen was adamant.

  Victor sighed. So be it. Would his soul be further damned if he sent more people to their deaths? By this time he was so emotionally numb that it didn't even matter now. "Very well, then. Who is the commanding officer of this unit?"

  "Do you remember the Talos incident?" Galen asked.

  "How could I forget?" Victor answered rhetorically.

  As the Federated Commonwealth Civil War drew to a close the year before, an expeditionary force made up of the newly formed SLDF 3rd Royal Battlemech Regiment and a mercenary unit called Stilicho's Stilettos were dispatched to a remote planet in the Periphery near the Rim Collection. Their mission was to uncover a strange artifact found on the planet's surface that may have provided a link to the fate of the extinct House Amaris. The planet was named Talos and it became a nightmare for everyone involved. Within hours the expedition's naval and aerospace assets were suddenly attacked and destroyed by a Caspar Drone warship; the few dropships that landed on the planet were instantly hit by thermonuclear weapons and obliterated while the surviving ground forces were attacked by battlemechs of unknown design. Less than a dozen soldiers lived to tell the tale. The mission ended in failure and the survivors were evacuated offworld.

  "A survivor from that mission who calls herself Natasha Kerensky."  Galen activated his noteputer and handed it to Victor. "You've read the file on her before, right?"

  "Yes. From what I read it seems that she fancies herself as the reincarnation of the original Black Widow." Victor studied her file on Galen's noteputer. "Interesting. It says here that she was involved in the Jade Falcon raid on Solaris VII that same year and she beat them handily; it also says that she may have been responsible for the destruction of a cult out in the Periphery somewhere."

  "That's not all." Galen declared. "I ran an analysis on her DNA when I had one of the doctors take a sample of her blood during a routine physical exam. She didn't know of course." 

  "And?"

  "It's an exact match as to the original Black Widow's DNA."

  For the second time in this meeting Victor was completely stunned. "But that's impossible! Natasha is dead! How could this be?"

  "I don't have the full answers yet. But I hope that we will know soon." Galen answered.

  "Lets just hope that we get all the answers we seek before it is too late." Victor added.


	8. VII

  Some soldiers will tell you that they joined up due to patriotism, they wanted to either serve their people or their native lands. Others would say they joined due to tradition; their fathers and their grandfathers did it before them and they would want to carry on that great practice. A few would even say that they did it just to improve their lives, whether they came from broken homes or from a world that had no future, these types believed that it would be a step up from their current predicament. Still others would say that they joined up for the money despite the fact that very few ever would get rich; it was more the exception than the rule.

  Then there was another reason: the thrill of it. Some people are either born daredevils or they had an incident in their upbringing that addicted them to life on the edge. They were competitors to the extreme in the most deadly game imaginable. War does strange things to people for it brings out the nature of extremes; the thought of being able to feel death, to almost touch it, was a thrill that some were completely addicted to and therefore their very lives revolved around the mastering of that art for without it, their lives would have no meaning.

  That was the strange thing about death and war; the ones who so wished to live were usually the ones who ended up getting killed. The ones who looked to get killed usually ended up alive. It was indeed the ultimate paradox.

  There were composite reasons as to why Stilicho Jones ended up as a mechwarrior. First of all, his father (who was also called Stilicho) was a mercenary commander of the Stilettos and the boy grew up one day hoping to follow in his father's footsteps. Secondly, Stilicho was an orphan who wanted a better life for himself due to the fact that his father was killed along with most of his unit in the ill-fated expedition to Talos and he had nowhere else to go. 

  But the overwhelming reason was that Stilicho himself was a lover of extremes. At times of great stress and extreme danger, his body would come alive; every body part, every cell would have a feeling of great excitement. War does that to people; it gives them the feeling of being totally living. Even the smallest and most mundane activities during war would have a great significance as opposed to doing those same tasks during peace. Most of the time he would hate being involved in it, but when the moment he returned to a situation of serenity, his body, his very spirit would compel him in order to return to his deadly game. It was more than a job for him; it was an obsession, a way of life.

  Stilicho had been assigned to the Stiletto training Company as a youth but balked when the unit didn't involve itself during the Federated Commonwealth Civil War. Because of his addiction to extremes, Stilicho deserted his father's mercenary unit and signed on with Archer's Avengers, a unit made of determined individuals who would stop at nothing in order to remove Katrina Steiner-Davion from power. While some soldiers in his new unit volunteered for other reasons such as revenge, Stilicho did it because he needed his fix, his body would only come alive upon the heat of battle. In the end, it was what had saved his life for the Stilettos had died almost to the last man on Talos a few years later. 

  When Archer Christofori stepped down as commander of the Avengers when the civil war was over, Stilicho resigned his commission as well. The young mechwarrior began looking for other opportunities to get back into the fighting. In some ways, Stilicho's feverish attempts to get involved into another conflict distracted him from the loss of his parents, he would drift from unit to unit and treating every team he was currently with as his surrogate kin. The pain never truly went away, but belonging to a temporary family dulled it somewhat. 

  And so it came to pass that Stilicho Jones bumped into an old grizzled tech named Ethan Lafitte who then introduced the young man to the strangest woman he had ever known, a beautiful young redhead who went by the name of Natasha Kerensky. Just before they met, Stilicho thought that it was a joke that anyone would want to name herself after the legendary Black Widow but all that changed the moment he met her. From the initial interview alone, Stilicho sensed a kindred spirit within Natasha. Like him, she was young and had that thousand-yard stare that was only exhibited by those having already experienced the horrors of war. What was even more important was that she was a first-rate mechwarrior and a very innovative tactician. So when the unit began to form and Natasha let everyone involved know about the unit's name, he knew that he had to be part of it.

  The Black Widow Company. Stilicho hoped that Wolf's Dragoons wouldn't sue them over name infringement. After all, the original Black Widow had started out her own company as a unit within the Dragoons. In fact the original Black Widow Company had renamed itself the Spider's Web Battalion after its original commander had left and returned to the Wolf Clan, only to die a few years later at the hands of her bitter rivals, the Jade Falcons. If the Spider's Web Battalion ever found out that a covert, black ops unit of the SLDF had indeed named itself the Black Widows and was led by no less than a woman named Natasha Kerensky, what would they do?

  If the Spider's Web Battalion wanted to fight in order to prove who the real Widows were, then Stilicho hoped to be there. Battle would be the ultimate test of character. It would even be cool if they did it just for fun. After all, he wanted to prove to the universe that he was for real, just as everyone else in the unit wanted to do. Once they had finished painting his _Pillager_ mech solid black and added an insignia of a black widow spider on its leg, he knew he just had something to prove.

  Stilicho sat on a pile of small crates and watched as the technicians finished installing the magnetic clamps on his battlemech's feet. Looks like it was going to be another intense operation. The extreme danger of it all didn't seem to bother him. He doubted whether the rest of his unit was concerned either. Like him; they were extremists as well.

  Since Stilicho joined the Widows six months ago, he and the rest of the unit were subjected to the most extremely hazardous training that he had ever experienced. From HALO- high altitude low opening drops- to jungle warfare commando training, they had it all. Quite a few of the recruits dropped out during that phase despite the fact that everyone who was invited to join was a combat veteran from some of the most elite units in the Inner-Sphere. For two months they had conducted training operations right in the heart of the Clan occupied zones just to keep alert. The rigorous training- in combat conditions- was a godsend to Stilicho as he eagerly and cheerfully executed one training phase after another. Now he heard that they were going to finally have an official mission- their first. Based on the unit's operational readiness and capabilities, Stilicho knew that it would probably be a near-impossible task that they would be given to complete. That suited him just fine.

  Precise surgical strikes. Upon the unit's inception, Captain Kerensky laid out their doctrine and capabilities. The Widows would be handling any operation deemed too impossible for standard battlemech regiments. Stilicho and the others felt that Wolf's Dragoons Spider's Web Battalion lost a certain degree of its edge when they expanded from a company-sized unit into a full combat battalion. In special operations, a battalion would be too unwieldy, too obvious and too conventional to be able to do their job properly. Using speed and surprise, Captain Kerensky drilled her new team into a unit that could come out of nowhere, hit fast and fade back into the shadows before anyone knew they would even be there. It would hardly make a difference if they faced overwhelming odds against them. They were a small but lethal team.

  Fidgeting with the straps on his mechwarrior combat suit, Stilicho couldn't help but wonder about his teammates. They were definitely an exceptional lot; each and every mechwarrior in the unit was at the top of their profession. Stilicho didn't know them all by name- the intensity of the training phases left little time for small talk- but he felt that since this was his new family, he would learn about each and every one of them sooner or later.

  A youth with light brown hair came bouncing over to him. "Hey Stilicho, I was told that the modifications on your _Pillager_ is finished and the tech crew is ready to transfer it onboard the dropship."

  "Thanks Kieran. So why are you so sprightly today?" Stilicho asked the teenager.

  Kieran smiled. "Just got an HPG message from my kid brother Duncan. He has been in the Dragoons school in Outreach only six months and he totally loves it! He is at the top of his class in mechwarrior training; seems he scored a new record at the simulators for his age class."

  Kieran McGavin was the orphaned grandson of Lloyd McGavin, the creator of the Draconis Combine's Nightstalker regiments. After Kieran's sister was killed in the game world of Solaris VII, Natasha Kerensky found him along with his eight-year old brother Duncan. Since then, the Black Widow unofficially adopted the two boys. Kieran went on to become a technician for the unit while Duncan was shipped off to the Wolf's Dragoons training school in Outreach.

  "That's great. At least then the Widows should have a replacement for me when I'm ready to retire." Stilicho quipped.

  "I doubt if you're ever going to retire." Kieran laughed. "I have this feeling we are gonna be scraping you off that mech of yours."

  "You son of a gun." Stilicho began to shadow box with the young tech when he noticed a man walking along the upper platform of the storage bay.

  It was Jimmy Clavell. With his slick black hair and pencil-thin mustache, it was very hard not to notice him. Clavell was wearing his usual mixture of a heavy black overcoat, knee-high boots and flashy tunic; it was a compromise between style and functionality. Stilicho knew for a fact that beneath Clavell's overcoat lay twin shoulder holsters that housed the man's dual customized Sternsnacht pistols. Clavell had a reputation as being that of a lady's man, just like his estranged father, "Gentleman" Johnny Clavell. Jimmy was one of "Gentleman" Johnny's many illegitimate sons, having served (and gotten thrown out) in the famed mercernary unit Wolf's Dragoons. After serving a stint with both Zeta Battalion and 7th Kommando and having been cashiered out of both units, Jimmy Clavell began to wander the Inner-Sphere as a freelancer until he happened to meet up with Natasha Kerensky. The rest they say, is history.

  Stilicho and Kieran watched as Clavell nearly tripped over an insulated wire situated on the platform before stumbling into the access way of the dropship. The technicians had been working 24-hour days for the past several weeks due to extensive modifications on both the unit's mechs as well as the dropship itself. Consequently, wires, cables and heavy machinery still cluttered the massive hangar bay.

  Kieran turned his head back to Stilicho. "Say, you're part of his lance aren't you?"

  "Sure am. The Wolf Spiders." Stilicho answered.

  The Black Widows were organized as a classic Inner-Sphere battlemech company; three lances of four battlemechs each- an organization that was a holdover from the old Star League Defense Forces. The command lance was led by Captain Natasha Kerensky herself; Stilicho belonged to the second lance that was being commanded by Clavell, they were called the Wolf Spiders and every mech in their lance was jump-capable. The third lance was probably the most mysterious to Stilicho, they were comprised of heavy and assault-class mechs and they were commanded by a mysterious mechwarrior named the Monk. Stilicho never did quite find out the Monk's true identity, the man preferred to be in the shadows. The Monk's head was clean-shaven and he looked young enough at first glance, until you got close to him and saw the network of wrinkles around his weary eyes. Rumors among the tech crew stated that the Monk was an immortal man; that he had been in every battle that human beings had ever been involved in and was reincarnated into another warrior every time he was killed. Stilicho dismissed this as complete folly; nevertheless, he wanted to find out more about this enigmatic man. The sooner the better, of course.

  "Say, is it true that Lieutenant Clavell actually tried to kiss Nasty when he was stone drunk a few months ago?" Kieran asked.

  "Yep. He did try. I was there after all." Stilicho answered wistfully.

  "So, did he succeed?" 

  "Nope. The Captain kicked him in the nuts and he volunteered for the company choir for a few weeks after his voice changed from baritone to soprano. He never ever tried that again." Stilicho grinned.

  "That sure is funny!" Kieran laughed and then all of a sudden went to a more somber mood.

  "What's wrong?" Stilicho asked the young tech.

  "Its just that, well." Kieran looked down. "I've known Nasty for quite awhile, even before she set up this unit."

  "And?"

  "She's changed, Stilicho." Kieran's eyes had a certain sadness to it. "When I first met her she was a very caring young woman. Sure, I mean she's always been tough but she could joke around sometimes, especially when my brother was around. But lately, ever since Duncan left for Outreach in fact, she started to become more distant, she became cold."

  "I understand." Stilicho observed. "It's a natural progression, after all."

  "What do you mean?" It was obvious that Kieran was spilling his guts out to Stilicho. "She doesn't joke around any more. All I get from her now is just orders. Every time I try to ask her if she wants to go out and have some fun all I get is a rebuff. It's almost like she purposely tries to stay clear of me."

  "You gotta remember, kid; she's commanding a unit now." Stilicho put his arm on Kieran's shoulder. "She is being aloof because she has to be. Every commander needs to have a certain separation from her subordinates or otherwise she could loose control. Too much fraternization ruins a unit's edge. Believe me, she's doing the right thing. I know it's hard on you because you have been friends with her longer than this unit has existed, but you gotta look at it from her point of view."

  "I see that now." Kieran swallowed this bit of information thoroughly. He didn't like it but that was the way it was.

  "Don't worry about it, when we finally get some R and R, I'm sure she will take up your offer then." Stilicho smiled.  "In the meantime, you can hang out with me."

  "Thanks, I'll buy you a beer then." Kieran returned to his happy mood just as they both noticed a group of people entering the cavernous hangar bay.

  It was the rest of the Black Widows. Led by Captain Natasha Kerensky herself, they all assembled in a semi-circle facing her. 

  Jimmy Clavell managed to stumble out of the dropship's cargo bay and just managed to get in with the group as their commander began to speak. He was a spitting image of his father, both in looks and in deeds.

  Natasha's fiery red hair was once again tied in a ponytail. "I've just got a message from Lieutenant General Cox." She waited until she had everyone's attention. "The codeword is _Irene_."

  _Irene_ meant that the mission was a go. A loud whoop came from the combined throats of all of the Widows. They would finally get going. 

  Only the Monk and Jimmy Clavell remained impassive; the Monk showed only the slightest trace of emotion as he smirked while Clavell was too drunk to say anything, otherwise he would have thrown up if he did.

  Natasha on the other hand, was cool and collected. "Black Widows, mount up. Prepare for immediate deployment."

  As they followed their commander onto the dropship ramp, they all had the sleepy look. Each had killed before, after all.


	9. VIII

  Spanning several light years in size, the Dark Nebula was a vast ocean of stellar dust and gasses that floated in the eternal night of space.

  Quite a number of Star League astrophysicists had hypothesized that the Dark Nebula may have been originally a binary star system and that one of the stars went supernova and ultimately shed its outer layers, causing a massive amount of gas and stellar debris. The surviving star's gravitational pull was enough to keep most of the debris within the immediate vicinity and even attracted nearby dust particles to form what is now known as the Dark Nebula.

  Theories as to the origins of the nebula never crossed Gudrun's mind. To him, the Dark Nebula was a refuge and a rallying point to the new cause. Star Commander Gudrun had once been a pilot in the Ghost Bear's 14th Battle Cluster. Gudrun was an ardent crusader, a Clan warrior who believed in his own innate superiority over the barbaric Inner-Sphere. As a veteran of many battles, Gudrun had waited and prepared for the eventual resumption of the Ghost Bear offensive towards Terra, humanity's birthplace. When the Khans of the Ghost Bears decided to relocate to the Inner-Sphere and cease further aggression against the Great Houses, Gudrun and a number of like-minded warriors in the Clan raised a howl of protest. If the Ghost Bears were to stop all further offensives, how could they ever hope to become the rulers of the Star League? More importantly, how could he ever gain glory without further battles?

  After a few agonizing months of soul searching, Gudrun finally made his decision. He would violate the honor codes of the warrior caste in order to once more taste the pleasures of battle. After all, what use would warriors have if there were no longer any wars with which to fight?

  Because of the extreme loyalty towards their leaders, very few Ghost Bear warriors ever challenged the majority decision to cease further hostilities against their neighbors. On the other hand, Gudrun and a few other Bear warriors began to hear rumors among the merchant caste that a new faction was building within the Clans, one that would be a rallying point for all like-minded warriors like him. To be liberated from the constraints of honor so that they would be free to wage war with no rules and no compromises. Gudrun thoroughly investigated his leads and was able to contact the merchant lord Cogliostro. Within a few months, Cogliostro was able to smuggle him and a few other Bear warriors who had had enough of the status quo into Camelot Command.

  Gudrun scratched his long forehead as he lay in his bunk. Genetically engineered as an aerospace fighter pilot, Gudrun would have been considered a freak by the ignorant barbarians of the Inner-Sphere. His large goggle-like eyes and small, frail body was genetically engineered to fit into a tiny aerospace fighter cockpit. Gudrun was physically weak in standard one gee gravity but he would become instantly alive once he was operating his _Jagatai_ omni-fighter; it was as if he would only be truly himself when he was strapped onto his seat, dealing death to his enemies.

  A sudden lurch came over Gudrun as he noticed that the ship's bulkheads began to vibrate. It could only mean one thing: the _Blood Claw_ had finally detected the overdue merchant jumpship and was accelerating to intercept her.

  With an instinct combined with years of experience, Gudrun immediately began to don his flight suit. As the leader of the ship's fighter complement, it was imperative that his unit would be ready to launch at a moment's notice. After putting on a body sock heater that would keep his body temperature warm even in the coldness of space, Gudrun then eased into his fully insulated G-suit.

  By the time the warning klaxon sounded, Gudrun was almost at the entrance of the _Blood Claw's_ fighter bay. The normal complement of an Essex-class destroyer would have been a star of ten fighters but due to the fact that Cogliostro's faction was still small, the actual number was only six omni-fighters at this point in time. It didn't really matter though, within the next few months, everyone was convinced that more warriors would flock to their cause once the first phase of Hydra was unleashed.

  Lord Cogliostro's plans were simple and direct: expose the Clan's naval assets to the Hydra virus in order to achieve aerospace superiority. Once all Clan naval vessels were under their control, they would deliver the Hydra virus to every planetary command post and military base not under their control or influence. The rest of the Clan civilian population would then be offered a choice, either submit to the new rulers or die in the most horrid way imaginable. Once their power was effectively consolidated, the combined might of the newly united Clans would strike havoc across the Inner-Sphere. Despite the Inner-Sphere's sheer numerical superiority, liberal use of the Hydra virus would wipe out most of their forces as well. 

  With practiced ease, Gudrun was already past the boarding ladder and was now mechanically plugging and strapping himself into the cockpit of his _Jagatai_. From torso harness fittings, G-suit lead and neuro-helmet with oxygen and communication plugs, the former Ghost Bear warrior was now fully equipped as he closed the cockpit canopy and began going through his pre-flight checklist. As he began to toggle the activation switch on his fighter's fusion engines, Gudrun noticed that the rest of his star mates were not far behind in their preparations as well.

  Gudrun could not help but smile as he waited for the launch signal. His force of six fighters were small but they were all veteran pilots from numerous Clans and they had all been training and doing battle within the Dark Nebula for the past several months. Gudrun and his star mates felt that they knew the advantages as well as the dangers of fighting within the nebula and that if anyone would dare challenge them here, their enemies would be swiftly dispatched with ease. In fact a small scout force of Jade Falcon omni-fighters once tried to penetrate the opaque walls of the nebula hoping that they could get lucky and spot Camelot Command but they were all destroyed in quick succession as Gudrun's fighter star hunted them down one by one within the maze of stellar gasses and dust. The Jade Falcon carrier left the area after several days, never knowing the fate of her scouts. That was several weeks ago and the Falcons had not been back since; they had apparently thought twice before sending in another aerospace reconnaissance force. 

  The bridge of the _Blood Claw_ was a beehive of activity as her crew waited anxiously for further word from the merchant jumpship _Krondorsfire_. The last HPG message they had received from the _Krondorsfire_ was nearly a month ago when the captain of the _Invader_-C class jumpship sent a coded signal to Camelot Command stating that they were fleeing from a Lyran warship in hot pursuit as she made her way towards the Dark Nebula for a supply run. Brunil and Cogliostro had almost given up the _Krondorsfire_ for lost until they had received a new coded message that the merchant vessel was able to give her pursuers the slip and would be rendezvousing with Camelot Command in a few days time.

  The _Blood Claw's_ Communications Officer turned her head towards Brunil. "Star Captain, I have just received a priority message from _Krondorsfire_ stating that they are less then 250 kilometers away from our starboard side."

  "Is their code authenticated?" Star Captain Brunil asked his subordinate.

  "_Aff_, Star Captain. It is an old password but it checks out."

  "Bring us about." Brunil ordered the _Blood Claw's_ helmsman. "Ninety degrees starboard at standard thrust."

  "_Aff_, Star Captain." The Helmsman acknowledged as the ships gravity intensified indicating that the engines were nearly at medium throttle now. A sudden shift to the right also indicated that the warship was turning to starboard as ordered.

  Brunil sat back in his Captains chair and relaxed slightly. For the past few weeks he had believed that they might have lost another precious jumpship to their enemies. What a relief it was to know that the _Krondorsfire_ was safe and would be returning with much needed men and supplies. The plans for Hydra were at such a critical phase that the loss of a single jumpship would have thrown off their timetable for months.

  After a few minutes the Communications Officer became instantly alert as she listened intently to her earphones. Brunil saw a surprised look on her face and wondered what it was. He was just about to ask what was going on when the Communications Officer turned her head in his direction.

  "Star Captain! The _Krondorsfire_ has just reported that she had spotted an Inner-Sphere warship rapidly closing in on her." The Communications Officer exclaimed.

  "What? What is our distance to _Krondorsfire_?" Brunil was aghast. How did an Inner-Sphere warship get so close without being detected?

  "150 km and closing, sir." The ship's Navigator answered. Due to the fact that they were in a nebula, visual sighting would occur only at close range.

  "Sound red alert. General quarters." Brunil ordered as klaxons began to whine all over the _Blood Claw_. "Did _Krondorsfire_ identify what type of warship is it?"

  "_Aff_, Star Captain." The Communications Officer answered. "They spotted a _Fox_ class corvette bearing down on them and they are taking evasive maneuvers to avoid it."

  A _Fox_ class corvette was trouble indeed. It was one of the newest ships that the Inner-Sphere possessed. Highly maneuverable and well armed for its size, a _Fox_ corvette would give the _Blood Claw_ a serious fight. Their intelligence reports stated that the Lyrans did not have any warships to spare for an operation like this; apparently their network apparatus had failed. But at this point Brunil was prepared to do what it took to safeguard both _Krondorsfire_ and Camelot Command; there was no choice but to engage and destroy the opposing vessel before it could reach the base.

  "Maximum thrust. Launch fighters. Get us in between _Krondorsfire_ and that warship. Once the fighters are clear, go to weapons free." Brunil barked out his orders as he strapped himself onto the Captain's chair.

  Gudrun immediately noticed a change in the air even though he was strapped inside his fighter cockpit. Klaxons whined as he was ordered to launch immediately. The former Ghost Bear gave a thumbs-up sign to the catapult control technicians as he hunkered down, anticipating a short, high-G sensation.

  He was not disappointed. The _Blood Claw's_ magnetic catapults immediately accelerated his _Jagatai_ heavy omni-fighter by five times normal gravity as he was launched out into the swirling gas clouds of the Dark Nebula. Gudrun banked his control stick to port as he tucked in his fighter's tricycle landing gear. He would make a slow orbit around the _Blood Claw_ as he waited for his star mates to form up on his starboard wing. Within a span of less than two minutes, five other omni-fighters had at last formed up behind him.

  They were composed of six omni-fighters: a pair of heavy _Jagatai_, a pair of _Turk_ medium fighters and a pair of _Kirghiz_ heavy assault fighters. They were a motley bunch, having been formed as a hodgepodge from different Clans but they had had extensive training and experience as far as fighting within the Dark Nebula. Orders from flight control had given them a heading to immediately make visual contact with _Krondorsfire_ and then to proceed on to their main target: a _Fox_-class warship that was pursuing the merchant vessel. Their orders were clear- engage the opposing warship and try to prevent it from destroying the _Krondorsfire_. All they had to do was delay the enemy ship in time for the _Blood Claw_ to arrive on the scene.

  So far not a word was spoken between the fighter pilots. Gudrun was only aware of the measured sound of his own breathing inside his helmet where the oxygen link was feeding his lungs as well as the carrier wave in his helmet earphones. Even in the swirling clouds of the treacherous Dark Nebula, the vacuum of space held no sound. The entire team was so well practiced that each member instinctively knew what to do.

  As the lead pilot, Gudrun opened up his throttles and led the unit out towards the merchant vessel. With the fighter's entire fuselage shaking after piercing through a gas cloud, Gudrun kept his eyes glued to the heads-up display. Soon, precious minutes passed as his squadron at last got to within visual range of the _Krondorsfire_.

  Like a giant, unfurled umbrella suspended in the black void of space, the Invader-class jumpship slugged along its vectored path as its small thrusters labored to get it towards the safety of the _Blood Claw_. Gudrun could see that the vessel carried only two Union-C dropships in her docking rings. Another dropship must have been lost on the way to the nebula, he thought. Gudrun's squadron made a slow pass over the _Krondorsfire_ and assessed any damage before leveling off and then increasing their thrust as they passed her.

  Gudrun punched his communications button. "Star Commander Gudrun to _Blood Claw_. We have attained visual identification of the jumpship. Confirmed positive ID on _Krondorsfire_. We are now moving to intercept enemy warship."

  "_Aff_, Star Commander." Came the reply even though there was a lot of static and a persistent echo due to the conditions of the nebula. "_Blood Claw_ should be within visual range of _Krondorsfire_ shortly."

  "Acknowledged. Beginning interception run now." Gudrun toggled off the comm. switch after his last reply.

  Gudrun's squadron then accelerated to maximum thrust as they readied their ordnances. Because of the limited visibility of the Dark Nebula, each omni-fighter was configured for close range combat; Gudrun's _Jagatai_ carried a massive 200mm Ultra-autocannon as well as an extended-range particle projectile cannon on its nose. The other fighters were similarly armed.

  As the unit got out of echelon and into a skirmish line that put every fighter abreast of one another, they passed into yet another wall of swirling gas and dust. Fighting within the nebula was akin to ground fighting inside a desert sandstorm, visibility was limited to a few hundred meters and the constant turbulence played havoc with the fighter's targeting systems. Nevertheless, the stakes were high and everyone knew that the penalty of failure was a cold death in the swirling void of emptiness. Gudrun and his star mates pressed on.

  Meanwhile the _Blood Claw_ had at last gained visual contact on the _Krondorsfire_ as it pierced the surrounding gas clouds and began a slow pass over the merchant jumpship.

  "Instruct the _Krondorsfire_ to immediately head for Camelot Command. We should be able to handle things from here." Brunil ordered from the bridge of the _Blood Claw_.

  "_Aff_, Star Captain." The Communications Officer replied.

  As the _Blood Claw_ passed over the _Krondorsfire_ and due to the fact that all eyes were towards the wall of gas and dust ahead of them where the enemy ship lay, the spotters on the _Blood Claw_ failed to notice that the two Union-C dropships had detached themselves from the _Krondorsfire_ and began a stealthy approach towards the renegade Clan warship.

  Several hundred meters away, Gudrun and his star mates had at last made visual contact with the enemy ship. It was clearly a _Fox_-class corvette, with its distinct, bullet-shaped hull and bristling weapons; the Inner-Sphere warship would be a tough opponent indeed.

  As Gudrun and his fighter star accelerated for their attack run, a worrying sign began to manifest itself into his mind. Even though his actions were now dictated by training and experience, Gudrun began to cast doubts about the unfolding battle; it seemed that the enemy corvette had barely moved once it had spotted his fighter star, in fact, it seemed to do nothing more than _drift_ even as Gudrun's fighter star was bearing down on it. Gudrun also wondered as to where were the corvette's fighter screen; surely the Lyrans would have equipped their warship with fighter escorts?

  Those very thoughts plagued the back of Gudrun's mind even as his fighter star was only a few hundred meters away. Several of Gudrun's star mates had already fired a few particle cannons at the enemy warship but the former Ghost Bear warrior had decided to restrain from firing his weapons until he got to within point-blank range. They would make as many strafing passes at the corvette until the Blood Claw entered the area.

  While explosions rocked the hull of the corvette from the initial barrage of weapons fire, the hairs on the back of Gudrun's neck began to prick up. Even though his fighter star was already within range of the warship's weapon batteries, the _Fox_ corvette had failed to open fire on them. Did they damage the warship so badly that all of its weapons were knocked out?

  As they finally dived right towards the forward hull of the enemy ship, Gudrun sensed that there was something seriously wrong with the entire situation. While his star mates began to open fire with short-ranged missiles and their autocannons, Gudrun refrained from firing and instead began to observe the corvette closely. As he peered out of his fighter's cockpit towards the warship, he noticed that the hull of the enemy ship seemed to be more fragile as usual; weapons fire from his unit's omni-fighters would seem to collapse whole sections of the target's hull. A warship of that caliber would surely stand up to the ordinance that a few omni-fighters would unleash on it would it not?

  Gudrun let out a shriek as he suddenly realized the awful truth. The former Ghost Bear pilot screamed into his comm. circuit for the others to break away from the attack as the Inner-Sphere warship was transformed into an expanding, white-hot star.

  All during his life, Gudrun's most intense fear was that he would die in a meaningless death, one with no glory or remembrance of his memory. As the nuclear shockwave vaporized his _Jagatai_ fighter along with the rest of his star mates, his worst nightmares had came true.

  For the next few minutes, a miniature, artificial star briefly illuminated the opaque gas clouds of the Dark Nebula before it burned itself out.

   "Thermonuclear explosion detected, my Khan." The Jade Falcon Science Officer stated.

  "Have you pinpointed its location?"

  "_Aff_, my Khan. It is on grid 7-G in the inner part of the nebula."

  "Proceed." The supreme leader of the Jade Falcon Clan ordered.

  Brunil shuddered in his chair as the _Blood Claw's_ view ports were suddenly awash in an incandescent bright light which bathed the bridge in an eerie, whitish glow before the reactive tint on the plexi-glass immediately compensated. A split second later, a minor shockwave reverberated across the warship's bulkheads, startling the already shocked bridge crew.

  Brunil immediately turned his head to face the ship's Science Officer. "What was that? What happened?"

  "Scanning now, Star Captain." The Science Officer began to check the ship's sensor readings.

  "It looked like a thermonuclear explosion." Brunil exclaimed.

  "_Aff_, Star Captain. We have just endured the after-effects of a nuclear shockwave." The Science Officer explained.

  Brunil turned to the ship's Communications Officer. "Get me in touch with Star Commander Gudrun."

  "_Neg_, Star Captain. I am unable to communicate with Star Commander Gudrun." The Communications Officer answered sadly. "I am not getting any transponder signals from any of our fighters."

  Brunil leaned back into his chair, shocked. "What?"

 As the bridge crew of the _Blood Claw_ began to face up to a horrifying reality that their fighter complement was just wiped out by a nuclear explosion, they remained unaware of _Krondorsfire's_ two Union-C dropships that had by now positioned themselves on the port flank of the warship's hull.

  Captain Natasha Kerensky spoke into her space suit's comm. link. "Wolf Spiders; deploy."

  A split second later the first dropship's drop tubes opened and a lance of four jump-capable battlemechs were released. Using their jump jets, the all-black battlemechs began a rapid approach towards the _Blood Claw's_ port hull.

  Stilicho Jones grimaced as he made minute adjustments on the controls of his _Pillager_ battlemech as he began to make a controlled descent on top of the warship's outer hull. Mechs were not designed to maneuver in space and so Stilicho struggled mightily to keep his mech's approach as smooth as possible. In the zero-gravity environment of cold space, the dangers that him and the rest of his lance faced were extreme; even a slight error in his piloting would have either made his battlemech too fast, thereby smashing into the warship's hull like a bullet impacting a brick wall or quite possibly missing the hull altogether, thereby flying off into the void to be lost forever.

  "Fire harpoons." Natasha spoke into her comm. link again.

  Within seconds of the Black Widow's order, specially modified turrets on both dropships fired harpoons that trailed several hundred meters of industrial strength cables towards the hull of the _Blood Claw_. The harpoon heads were in fact magnetic clamps that held fast onto the warship's hull upon impact. Once the cables were in place, the dropships began to reel themselves in closer until they were just a few dozen meters away from the surface of the _Blood Claw_.

  Even in optimal planetary conditions a jump-jet equipped battlemech still had the maneuverability of a brick but Lieutenant Jimmy Clavell and his team handled the descent brilliantly, each battlemech landed with a loud metallic clang that reverberated across the inside of the _Blood Claw's_ hull. As the Wolf Spider lance of the Black Widows began to spread out on top of the hull using specially modified magnetic footpads, the outer doors of the closest dropship began to open.

  "Platoons one to three, EVA.I repeat, EVA." The Black Widow ordered.

  With practiced precision, the black, battle armored commandos of the SLDF's 22nd Special Air Service Regiment began to rappel towards the renegade Clan warship by using the industrial cables from the modified dropship turrets. In a scant few seconds, battle armored soldiers were now on the outer hull of the _Blood Claw_.

  Just as Brunil ordered the _Blood Claw_ to turn around and head back to Camelot Command, the entire bridge crew was startled by several loud metallic clangs which reverberated all over the ship. The noises were so loud that almost everyone had thought that it was another shockwave that hit them. Brunil and a few of the more experienced crew thought otherwise, they realized that something had occurred on the outer hull.

  "Get me visual on our port side!" Brunil ordered the startled crew.

  As the live video of battlemechs and battle armored soldiers began to flood the view screens of the bridge, several exasperated crew members let out cries of shock. It was clear that they were being invaded.

  "All available weapons, open fire and destroy those dropships!" Brunil shouted at the top of his lungs.

  As several laser and autocannon turrets began to traverse their mountings to aim at the attached dropships, they were rapidly engaged by combined fire from the Wolf Spider lance.

  "Spread out, you idiots." Clavell ordered his lance mates as he poured a volley of gauss slugs and missiles from his _Mad Cat Mk II_ into a nearby naval laser turret.

  "Did he just call us idiots?" Stilicho asked as he fired his mech's dual gauss cannons towards another turret.

  "He sure did, partner." Johnny Gundam replied nonchalantly as his _Axman_ tore off the outer casing of a Barracuda missile launcher using its hatchet.

  "Now that wasn't very nice." Stilicho pouted as he waited for his gauss cannons to cycle back their spent energy.

  "Pipe down you two! Get to work!" Clavell snapped back as his mech began walking towards another set of turrets.

  As the Wolf Spiders kept shooting at every turret that tried to face the dropships, the battle-armored commandos of the SAS converged towards the outer doors of the _Blood Claw's_ cargo bay. Within a few seconds they began to lay shaped explosive charges across its perimeter.

  As they finished laying the last of the explosive charges a sergeant spoke into his suit's comm. link. "Charges are set."

  "Execute." The Black Widow replied.

  A massive explosion ripped through the side of the _Blood Claw's_ hull, reverberating across the inner bulkheads. Pieces of the ship's sundered cargo door began to float outwards into the vacuum of space as the SAS commandos began to venture through the ruptured opening.

  "We have a breach. Moving in now." The Monk spoke through his battlesuit's comm. link as he climbed into the exposed cargo bay along with several commando squads.

  "I'm on my way." Natasha signaled her team as she began to rappel along one of the attached cables. As the Black Widow began her descent towards the hull of the warship, several others wearing space suits began to follow her down.

  Brunil unstrapped himself from his captain's chair as pandemonium raged in the _Blood Claw's_ bridge. Several crewmembers were in a daze while others began to ready their own personal weapons. Some didn't know it yet but it would be a fight to the death; no quarter was asked and none would be given.

  As he checked his laser pistol, Brunil happened to glance over at his Communications Officer. The young girl just stood there, tears welling down her freckled cheeks. Brunil remembered her being a bright, cheerful trainee who was so eager to learn the intricacies of operating a warship just a few months ago. As the former Smoke Jaguar looked around, seeing the mixture of confusion, anger and fear, he realized that he had failed his crew and his cause.

  It was all so brilliant. The _Krondorsfire_ was nothing more than a _Trojan horse_ full of enemy soldiers. And Brunil played right into their hands. A part of him marveled at the audacity in the planning of this type of operation. Clearly he was up against a most deadly adversary.

  Brunil strode over to the Communications Officer and touched her lightly on the shoulder. "I am heading for engineering. You are to take command of the bridge."

  The girl merely nodded.

  Brunil's throat was chocked with emotion but he went on anyway. "You must hold for as long as possible. Do you understand that?"

  "_Aff_, Star Captain." Came the solemn reply.

  "Very well, good luck." Brunil strode towards the exit but he turned around and looked at her for one last time. "I-I never even knew your name."

  The young lady stood at attention to signify a final show of respect. "Communications Officer Drusilla, Captain."

  "Goodbye, Drusilla."

  "Farewell Captain, may you be remembered. _Dosvedanya_." Drusilla whispered as her Captain left the bridge.

  It was just a matter of time and both sides knew it. Although the crew of the _Blood Claw_ outnumbered their attackers, the battle armor equipped commandos would win out in the end. The ship's crew had no Elemental troopers on board; they hadn't expected to be boarded and all that they were equipped with were their side arms. But laser pistols and guns would have little effect against a trooper wearing powered armor.

  As Natasha made it into the cargo bay, she could see that the SAS commandos had already secured it. Several troopers kept watch at the adjoining corridors while others began planting small chargers to blast through several sealed airlocks.

  The Monk bounded over to Natasha in his battle suit. "We're ready for phase two."

  "Okay, listen up." Natasha addressed several combat engineers and SAS squad leaders that were beside her. "First platoon, head for the bridge; second platoon we are going for engineering. Let's go people!"

  Just as Brunil made it to the engine room of the _Blood Claw_, he heard several loud explosions down the corridor. It wouldn't be long now. Brunil hoped that he would have at least have some time to do one last thing, he needed to ensure that whatever happened, the enemy would not gain access to the ship's navigation computer for it held information as to the exact location of Camelot Command. Although he knew that the ship was lost, Cogliostro would still have a chance.

  "Seal the doors and hold them for as long as possible!" Brunil ordered the shaky engineering crew.

  One of the engineers spoke out; he was a young, sandy haired man. "We should surrender, Star Captain."

  Brunil drew his laser pistol and shot the man in the face before turning to the others. "Hold this room for as long as possible, _quiaff_?"

  The remaining crewmembers acknowledged.

  As Brunil ran over to the main engineering control panel, he heard several loud clangs emanating from outside of the doors as his subordinates took cover. The Captain of the _Blood Claw_ kept concentrating as he began to override the failsafe controls of the warship's fusion reactor. The moment he sabotaged one safety protocol, Brunil immediately closed the access codes for it as well, thereby preventing his enemies from undoing what he had done. Just as he overrode eight protocols after maximizing the output of the reactor, a loud explosion ripped through the doors.

  The shockwave threw Brunil back about a few meters and he landed on his back. As he got up and returned to the control panel, his men were firing at the armored troopers that were pouring through the breach. One armored commando staggered and fell from multiple laser and gyrojet shots but two others took its place, spraying the defenders with pulse lasers as well. In zero gravity situations, the laser was the most ideal weapon due to the fact that it had no recoil that could throw the shooter off-balance and lessen his accuracy. The SAS commandos had trained for this type of close-quarter battle and they were using their learned skills to deadly effect as one crewman after another began to fall.

  Brunil paid no mind to the battle as he concentrated on overloading the reactor. Just as he typed in his final command to override the last failsafe protocol and was preparing to press the enter key, a heavily padded glove took hold of his wrist.

  The Captain of the _Blood Claw_ turned and came face to face with the visored helmet of the Black Widow.

  As Brunil tried to press the enter key with his other hand, a kick from Natasha sent him flying back into a nearby bulkhead. As Natasha tried to close in on him, her heavy space suit slowed her down and gave Brunil time to draw his laser pistol from his hip holster and he was able to get a shot off.

  The red laser beam impacted on Natasha's left torso. Pieces of Nomex and insulation broke up and swirled in the zero gravity as most of the laser's impact was absorbed by her space suit. Nevertheless, Natasha experienced a scorching pain on her left thigh as she went down and began to drift into unconsciousness.

  Brunil quickly began to make his way towards the main control panel once again but just as he stepped over the prone form of the Black Widow, Natasha's hand flew out and caught his left ankle. The pull was so sudden that Brunil accidentally let go of his laser pistol as his forward inertia was suddenly stopped. The laser pistol began to float across the room.

  With a last, desperate surge of adrenaline, Brunil drove his right foot into Natasha's helmet. The impact of the kick cracked the helmet's visor and stunned the Black Widow. As Brunil wriggled free of her grasp and drove his finger towards the keyboard panel, a laser shot hit the warship Captain in his chest. The laser bored a hole through his heart and Captain Brunil died just as he was about to partially redeem his honor.

  As Natasha willed her way back to consciousness she noticed Ethan Lafitte standing over her, an Intek laser rifle in his arms. The crusty old technician helped the Black Widow up on her feet.

  "That was one hell of a pounding you took. You okay?" Ethan asked.

  "I'll live. Give me a sitrep." Natasha replied groggily.

  "Well, looks like we have just secured engineering. The Monk reported that the bridge was secured just a little over a minute ago. We are still getting resistance from other parts of the ship but we pretty much control the important sections." Ethan explained.

  "Okay, looks like our _Trojan horse_ gambit was a success. What are the casualty figures?"

  "Six dead, another eight wounded. Quite a few of the enemy had gyrojet rifles and we took a few casualties from massed small arms fire."

  "Okay then." Natasha bit her lip then pointed towards the engineering controls. "Can you check out this control panel? It seems that this Captain was fiddling with it."

  Ethan looked over and checked out a few readings. "Uh-oh. It seems that almost every failsafe protocol has been disabled and the reactor has been ordered to overload."

  "Can you shut it down?" The Black Widow asked.

  "Seems our friend here placed password blocks on his command parameters. It would take me hours to crack the codes. He was just about to detonate the engines when you stopped him but even with the single failsafe protocol in place, it's only a matter of time before this ship blows sky high." Ethan answered.

  "How much time?"

  "About thirty minutes at the most." Ethan sighed.

  "Can we still maintain close to maximum thrust?"

  Ethan was puzzled at the question but he sensed that Natasha had a plan. "We sure can. It may bleed some of the excess power off but an overload is still inevitable. What have you got in mind?"

  "Evacuate all nonessential personnel back to the dropships. I'm going to the bridge." Natasha gave Ethan that wily smile she always had when a new, diabolical idea entered her mind.

  Cogliostro paced impatiently back and forth in Camelot Command's Communications Center. The Merchant Lord was deeply worried. Just over an hour ago the _Blood Claw_ had reported that she had sighted the missing merchant jumpship and was moving to intercept her and then escort her back to the naval base. Since then, Brunil's ship had remained silent. Did something happen?

  Just as Cogliostro was about to order one of his precious dropships to lift off and go in search of the _Blood Claw_, a Communications Officer began to plot several signals on his computer screen.

  "Well, what is it?" Cogliostro asked.

  "My Lord, I am getting a signal. From my sensor readings I believe it is the _Blood Claw_."

  Cogliostro sighed with relief. "Good. Ask them what is the situation with the merchant vessel."

  The Comm. Officer spoke into his microphone and then looked up, puzzled. "I am getting no reply."

  "What?" Cogliostro was dumfounded.

  "My Lord! The _Blood Claw_ has accelerated to maximum thrust, heading directly for us." Exclaimed a sensor operator.

  "But that's impossible! Brunil would nev-" Cogliostro blurted just as a loud echo boomed on the speakers of the Comm. Center.

  "Lord Cogliostro I presume?" A sly, female voice was heard over the speakers.

  "Who is this?" Demanded Cogliostro.

  "My name is Captain Natasha Kerensky of the Black Widows and this will be the last words you are ever gonna hear- don't mess with the Star League." The voice boomed across the room.

  "What is going on?" Screamed Cogliostro as panic began to grip everyone in the room.

  "Okay, let her go." Natasha ordered as the dropships disengaged their connecting cables and steered away from the rapidly accelerating warship.

  The _Blood Claw_ attained maximum thrust for a few minutes as its nose plowed into the steel docking rings of Camelot Command. At the same time, its reactor had at last overloaded and exploded outwards just as the bulk of the ship penetrated into the concrete casing of the naval base. The resulting shockwave gutted the core of Camelot Command, which also set off a chain reaction in its own fusion reactor core that precipitated a meltdown.

  Looking from the view port of the orbiting dropship, the Black Widow could see multiple explosions as fires ripped through the ancient naval base. Stored ordinances also detonated, adding even more havoc to the already doomed inhabitants. It would just be a matter of time till the fires and explosions would render the entire base uninhabitable.

  Natasha remembered something that she had learned from her childhood instructor- _every problem is its own solution_.

  "That should take care of the renegade Clan faction." Ethan said as a matter of fact.

  "Yes it should." Natasha sighed. "The resulting devastation will also destroy Camelot Command's viability as a strategic naval base for anybody in this area."

  "All's well that ends-" Ethan's quote was cut short as a massive, looming shape filled the view ports of the dropship's bridge.

  Carrying an entire galaxy of Clan warriors in its hangar bays and attached dropships, the colossal, cigar-shaped warship partially blocked the crimson rays from the dying red dwarf star as it approached. It was a _Nightlord_-class battleship. Painted in the emerald green colors of the Jade Falcons, the _Nightlord_ was the pinnacle of Clan warship design and it could easily destroy the two tiny dropships as it slowly passed over them.

  An old but powerful female voice boomed over the carrier wave of the dropship's speakers. "Who dares defy the will of the Jade Falcon?"

  Natasha took the microphone and activated it. "This is Captain Natasha Kerensky. Identify yourself."

  "Ah- so the rumors are indeed true. It seems that reports of your death has been exaggerated, Captain." The female voice laughed. "I am Khan Marthe Pryde of the battleship _Emerald Tower_."

  "Khan Pryde, it is an honor to finally speak to the supreme leader of the Jade Falcon Clan." Natasha smiled. "What brings you to Camelot Command?"

  "We detected a thermonuclear explosion not far from here. All we had to do was to follow our sensor readings once we had pinpointed the source of the blast. And what a surprise we have found, it seems that you have not only wiped out these _chalcas_ renegades but it is apparent that you have destroyed Camelot Command as well." Khan Pryde explained.

  "Yes, quite so. Would you mind if we leave now?"

  "I am afraid I do mind. You are in Jade Falcon territory and I offer you honorable surrender. If you try to resist us Captain Kerensky, you will surely be destroyed." Khan Pryde retorted with apparent relish.

  "If I beg to differ Khan Pryde, Camelot Command is not in Jade Falcon territory. I recall that Snord's Irregulars has beaten your forces twice in your attempts to take it. Since Camelot Command has been destroyed then I guess this qualifies as neutral territory don't you think?" Natasha objected.

  "Say whatever you wish, barbarian dog!" Khan Pryde snapped. "You are in no position to bargain! Surrender now and I promise that you shall live as my personal bondsman. I claim possession over you and your men."

  "Then I invoke a trial of refusal, Khan Pryde." Natasha threw down the gauntlet. "Since you Falcons regard yourselves as paragons of Clan honor, I challenge you to single combat. If you regard honor as the highest virtue that a warrior can have, then surely you must accept."

  Khan Marthe Pryde leaned back in her chair on the bridge of the _Emerald Tower_. This so-called Black Widow was invoking Clan law as a gamble to try and save her tiny force from being taken prisoner. Since the Jade Falcons regarded mercenaries as lacking in honor, she could have easily made an excuse not to follow protocol and destroy them with ease.

  But another thought entered the Jade Falcon leader's mind. Khan Pryde knew that she needed to prove that the Falcons could win in any fight, even a fair one. And at the same time, she also was prepared for this eventuality. Whatever the case, the Jade Falcons had the advantage.

  "Very well, I accept your proposal for single combat. It shall be held in the ruins of Camelot Command. I shall choose one champion from my warriors to face you. What are your terms?" Kahn Pryde asked.

  "If I am victorious, then you will grant me and my men safe passage out of the Dark Nebula and back into Lyran space. If I fail, then my men will surrender as bondsmen." Natasha replied.

  "Bargained well and done, Captain Kerensky. May this decision result in your honorable death and a place in our _Remembrance_." Khan Pryde smirked as she concluded the bargaining.

  "We shall see. Over and out." Natasha answered before she cut off the link.

  Khan Marthe Pryde turned to her advisor, Ixtil. "Where is Star Colonel Joanna?"

  "With the rest of her unit, my Khan." Ixtil answered. "She is in the hangar bay, awaiting orders."

  "Good. Tell her to prepare for individual combat." Khan Pryde ordered. What better than the killer of the Black Widow with which to fight this abomination with.


	10. IX

  Only when you become truly afraid of death do you fully appreciate life. It is quite a strange paradox that those warriors who deal in death sometimes become religious or even become builders and architects when they finally retire from a lifetime of killing. It was as if they had at last completely disentangled themselves from their former profession to the point that they would in some ways make amends for all the destruction they had wrought; turning to gods and building houses were in some ways, a form of atonement and penitence.

  And then there were those warriors that were already dead. Despite the fact that they would go on killing, these types of soldiers would simply not care whether they would die or not. To them, their life had no meaning. Consequently, they were also the most dangerous types that one could ever encounter in combat. When one no longer cares for the beauty of a sunrise or a slight breeze when petals would float in the wind, one can only think of doing, not being. Killing was therefore not subjected to causes or philosophy, but rather it became a set of skills and experiences in which one would apply in a mechanical precision of tasks to be done.

  Star Colonel Joanna ran a gloved hand over her gray, frizzled scalp before she donned her neurohelmet. It was a ritual that she made before every battle. With a habit born of perpetual practice and experience, Joanna checked the instrument panel of her cockpit before concentrating on her HUD or heads up display. All of her readouts indicated that her omni-mech was functioning normally.

  As she glanced over her weapon readout indicators on the lower right corner of her control panel, Joanna noticed a small pin that hung from a piece of string from one of the switches. It was a stylized rendering of the Jade Falcon insignia; the great bird _Turkina_ in mid-flight, carrying a katana. Taking the pin in between her thumb and forefinger, Joanna rubbed it for good luck. In some ways, the pin was her reminder of the past. It was her one piece of remembrance for Aidan Pryde.

  Aidan Pryde, the maverick commander of the Jade Falcon Guards had been nearly disgraced but had fought to regain his honor in the climactic battle of Tukayyid. When the quasi-religious order of Comstar challenged the Clans to a proxy battle that would decide the fate of the Clan Invasion, Joanna and Aidan fought them and thereby regained honor to a once disgraced unit. The fight was not without cost however, Aidan Pryde died but not before destroying dozens of enemy mechs that earned him a passage in the Falcon _Remembrance_.

  The valiant death of Aidan Pryde also ensured that his blood legacy would continue in the next generation of Falcon warriors. Despite being in the thick of battle, Joanna survived but in many ways, she too had died on Tukayyid. Everyone has their secrets and for Joanna, it was her fondness and affection for Aidan. Such displays were forbidden among trueborn warriors and Joanna did her best to hide the feelings that were growing inside of her for Aidan. But in the end, she never had a chance to reveal what she really felt for him. The rise of Aidan's daughter Diana Pryde among the ranks of Falcon warriors carried a certain satisfaction for Joanna; she was instrumental in training the young woman for it was Aidan's wish, after all.

  Then came the war against the Falcon's bitter rivals, the Wolf Clan. In the dry, dusty planet of Twycross, Joanna faced her most deadly enemy, Khan Natasha Kerensky of the Wolf Clan. In a hard-fought duel, Joanna had succeeded in doing what everyone once thought was impossible: she had single-handedly killed the Black Widow herself. She was nicknamed the Spider Killer after that victory. But Joanna paid no mind. The reason why she had won was because Joanna fought for no causes, she fought simply to kill. In the end, nothing had any meaning for her anymore.

  As age began to take their toll on her skills and reflexes, younger warriors began to outpace Joanna's skills and she was relegated to a sibko training cluster after she had sustained injuries against another rival Clan, the Steel Vipers. She was then nicknamed Gimpy after the limp that she displayed when she was out of her mech cockpit.

  When she was ordered to report for a trial of position to command the Dark Wing _Solahma_ Cluster, Joanna paid no mind as to the reasons why, she simply said goodbye to her training _sibko_ and returned once more to the Falcon Occupation Zones. After killing her three opponents during her trial of position that earned Joanna the right to become Star Colonel and to command the Dark Wing Cluster, they stopped calling her Gimpy. Once again, the old Falcon was someone to be feared.

  Joanna's attention focused back to the present as she opened up her mech's throttle. Almost as an afterthought, her _Thor_ omni-mech responded, moving forward at a leisurely speed until it came upon the outer edge of a dusty crater. The crimson rays of the red dwarf star cast an eerie, reddish palette across the planetoid's barren landscape. Joanna's _Thor_ was painted in the bright green colors of the Jade Falcons and also had a stylized rendering of a falcon's head painted on its center torso.

  It had only been an hour before that Star Colonel Joanna had ventured forth from the grounded Falcon dropship to meet up with her challenger. She had been briefed thoroughly by Khan Marthe Pryde herself. Joanna's Khan told her that she would be fighting a so-called reincarnation of her old enemy, the Black Widow. Joanna herself had heard of the rumors that Natasha Kerensky had seemingly returned from the dead, hell-bent on revenge. Despite the potential danger of it all, Joanna regarded it as just another battle. Whether this abomination was truly the Widow or not, she would send Natasha back to the hell she came from.

  As Joanna waited along the edge, a black _Warhammer_ battlemech strode onto the opposite side of the crater. It was painted fully black, with a red hourglass on the shin of one of its legs. Joanna could notice that its arm mounted weapons looked different from the standard particle projectile cannon configuration. Even the short-ranged missile rack on its shoulder was missing. It had apparently been modified, quite possibly using Clan technology.

  Captain Natasha Kerensky eased up on her _Warhammer's_ throttle as soon as it reached the opposite edge of the crater lip. Even though the other side of the massive crater was over several dozen kilometers away, she could clearly see the _Thor_ omni-mech on the other side, eagerly waiting for the duel to begin.

  As she began to think of the myriad tactics to be used against her opponent, an ancient military maxim came into Natasha's mind- _no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy_.

  Her planning had worked beautifully up to this point. After the raid on the Luxor Building in Tharkad, SLDF intelligence analysts were able to decode the Clan renegades intelligence network. Information from the data disk had revealed a disaffected faction within the Clan merchant and scientist caste bent on renewing the Clan invasion using a lethal virus that could decimate hundreds of millions. With the location of Camelot Command in their hands, the planning of the _Trojan horse_ operation was approved by General Cox himself.

  Due to the fact that the SLDF could not spare any warships for the operation, Natasha had requested and got the approval for a full-sized mockup of a _Fox_-class corvette. In reality, the fake warship was nothing more than a cluster of fusion bombs that would be wired to detonate when its proximity sensors detected enemy ships at point-blank range.

  When the Lyrans intercepted and destroyed a merchant vessel belonging to the renegades several months before, another opportunity presented itself. SLDF engineers then converted a civilian _Invader_-class jumpship into an exact replica of the _Krondorsfire_. Complete with duplicated transponder codes from the stolen data disk as well as a password that would allow the vessel safe passage to the Dark Nebula base, the trap was set.

  Just a few days before the attack, the fake _Krondorsfire_ jumped into a region of the Dark Nebula where Camelot Command was close by. One of its docking rings held the disassembled warship. Within hours, the fake warship was assembled by an elite team of technicians in the depths of space and eventually set to drift alongside the _Krondorsfire_, ready to be exploded once it came into enemy contact. As the _Krondorsfire_ began to accelerate away from the _Fox_ corvette mockup, it began to send out a distress call to the enemy warship that was stationed in Camelot Command.

  As the _Blood Claw_ passed over the fake _Krondorsfire_, two specially modified _Union_-class dropships disengaged from the remaining docking rings of the jumpship and preceded on a stealthy approach towards the enemy warship. With the crew's attention focused on the obvious target in front of them, the _Blood Claw's_ collision avoidance sensors never detected the two dropships due to the fact that they had built-in stealth systems on board as well as their slightly parallel angles of approach. If the Inner-Sphere had the technology to mount stealth systems on battlemechs and aerospace fighters, why not dropships? Stealth armor, ECM suites and null-signature systems could be modified to be placed and used on dropships, Natasha reasoned. It was a daring experiment, but it stood a good chance of success; sensors would be generally ineffective in the swirling gas clouds of the Dark Nebula. Due to the fact that the Clan renegades had envisioned an enemy that would be using conventional tactics against them, they never had a chance; Natasha's unconventional approach to the problem proved to be the deciding factor.

  But now, facing an enemy that had killed her previous incarnation, the Black Widow had something to worry about. When her challenger's name was announced over the dropship's comm. link, every one of the Widows had expressed surprise with the exception of Natasha. The moment the Black Widow had heard Khan Marthe Pryde's voice over the communications link, she knew that this would not be an easy battle. The Khan of the Jade Falcons was known as a wily and dangerous adversary and the conditions of this duel proved that reputation correct.

  Joanna activated her comm. link. "I am Star Colonel Joanna of the Dark Wing Cluster, who dares to defy th-" A loud ping interrupted the Clanner's statement as Natasha sent a static pulse along the same frequency.

  "Enough of this Clan crap. Let's get it on." Natasha interrupted.

  "So the abomination shows her true colors at last. I can sense from your voice alone that you are the one they call the Black Widow." Joanna retorted.

  "You got that right. Any further questions before we start blasting?"

  Joanna leaned back on her cockpit chair, she had remembered that very voice many years ago, it sounded somewhat younger now but it was still distinctly familiar. "It seems my senses are playing tricks on my mind. You see, despite the fact that your voice sounds all too familiar to me, I do recall that I had killed you on Twycross many years ago."

  "You sure did. This is my second life." Natasha smiled.

  "You shall only live twice. Whether you are just a clever impostor or the ghost of Natasha herself, I will cut your battlemech in two and you shall die in it." Joanna fumed.

  "Words, words, words. Are you going to sing birdsongs and preen your feathers all day, Jade Turkey?" Natasha goaded.

  A volley of long-ranged missiles leapt out of the _Thor's_ shoulder rack on a direct path towards Natasha. The range was way too long even for missiles however and they impacted just below the _Warhammer's_ legs onto the crater wall. It looked like the talking was over and the killing was about to begin.

  Joanna pushed down on both her foot pedals as her _Thor's_ jump jets activated and brought her omni-mech down onto the crater floor. At the same time, Natasha activated her mech's throttles and also began to traverse down onto the base of the depression. The crater itself was massive, stretching across several hundred kilometers and contained a partial wing of the destroyed Camelot Command base. Glowing pieces of wreckage was strewn about, some the size of large buildings; when the _Blood Claw_ smashed and ruptured the base power plant, it instantly triggered a meltdown which strewn radioactive material all over its ruins.

  The atmospheric conditions of the planetoid also posed a unique challenge to the duelists, for the low gravity enabled mechs to travel faster than in normal gee environments and the extremely low temperatures enabled their respective heat venting capabilities to be enhanced. Therefore, both Joanna's and Natasha's mechs would be able to sustain prolonged barrages of fire from their weapons with little worry of overheating. But the risks in regards to fighting in a deadly environment were also enhanced: the thin atmosphere was almost similar to that of the vacuum of space. If a single part of a mech's internal structure was exposed to the thin atmosphere for example, destructive complications could ensue; an armor breach might expose the mech's myomer muscles to the extreme environment possibly causing it to either freeze or buckle. An entire limb might either freeze in place or explode due to catastrophic failure of its internal structure. If there was an armor breach in the critical areas of the torsos or even the cockpit itself, the mech might just destroy itself or even expose its pilot to the deadly unbreathable atmosphere of the planetoid.

  Star Colonel Joanna knew the risks but placed it at the back of her mind as she moved her _Thor_ along the strewn wreckage of what was once part of Camelot Command. She could see smoldering columns of concrete that were awash in radioactive material from the destroyed power plant. If any pilot were to expose themselves into that deadly mix of thin atmosphere and extreme radiation, they would die horribly in a matter of seconds. Joanna cursed as she lost the tracking on the enemy _Warhammer_ as soon as it had reached the cavern floor. The Black Widow apparently had some sort of ECM device that enabled her mech to become invisible to Joanna's sensors.

  Staying near a large piece of concrete wreckage, Natasha's _Warhammer_ tried to blend in with her surroundings as she activated her mech's null-signature system. The null-signature was a stealth system designed to mask a mech's presence on the battlefield. With a combination of heat baffles that reduced its infrared signature as well as incorporating a stealthy system of sensors and communications, Natasha could render her _Warhammer_ invisible to opposing sensors in under limited conditions.

  As soon as the _Thor_ strode on by her ambush point, Natasha quickly disengaged her null-signature system in order to fire her Clan manufactured dual-gauss cannons at her enemy. Essentially an inert metal slug propelled by intense magnetic energy, the gauss cannon was the next step in projectile weapon evolution. The massive magnets of the gauss cannons grabbed onto their respective metal slugs and polarized it. With the intense magnetic fields surrounding them, the massive shells instantly leapt out of the rifled barrel of the _Warhammer's_ arms towards the unsuspecting _Thor_.

  But Joanna immediately sensed a movement on her right flank and quickly stomped on her foot pedals as the _Thor's_ jump jets fired up, enabling the 70-ton omni-mech to leap up several dozen meters into the air. The _Warhammer's_ gauss slugs narrowly missed the right side of the _Thor_ as the 120mm solid projectiles passed to within a hair's breath of the _Thor's_ legs, their vapor trails creating a white, laser-like cut through the thin air.

  As the _Thor_ began its slow descent back towards the crater floor, Joanna twisted her omni-mech's torso in order to bring her weapons in line against her opponent. The black _Warhammer_ immediately began to pivot sideways as it narrowly avoided a man-made lightning bolt from the _Thor's_ particle projectile cannon that missed its right shoulder by just a few meters.

  The inside of Natasha's cockpit was awash in a blinding white light for a nanosecond as the aftereffects of the particle projectile cannon's beam came tantalizingly close to it. As the Black Widow shrugged off the effects of the flash from her eyes, the _Thor_ fired its LB-X autocannon at her. The cluster munitions from the autocannon impacted on the _Warhammer's_ center torso and tore off a few chunks of armor but not enough to cause a breach. As both mechs began to move sideways while turning their torsos to continuously face each other, Natasha fired a barrage of three medium-ranged Clan heavy lasers that melted off several chunks of armor from the _Thor_ omni-mech.

  With the light gravity of the planetoid enabling their mechs to move at faster speeds not thought possible in typical conditions, both mechs began to circle each other while constantly rotating their torsos in order to keep their weapons aimed as well as keeping their lightly armored rear torsos away from one another. Both mechs fired continuous barrages of weapons fire but very few scored hits due to the fact that both mechs would continually dodge and weave and would consequently make them a harder target.

  Just as Natasha was able to get a few solid hits from her gauss cannons that stripped away most of the _Thor's_ frontal armor, Joanna fired her PPC that was able to penetrate the armor on the _Warhammer's_ right leg. The resulting breach immediately exposed the battlemech's myomer muscles to planetoid's thin atmosphere. As the lubricants around the synthetic muscles dried up, the myomers froze, nearly tripping Natasha's mech over as the Black Widow struggled to keep her _Warhammer_ upright after a sudden stop.

  It was the moment Joanna was waiting for; the Jade Falcon mechwarrior instantly disabled her long-ranged missile's tracking controls, enabling it to be fired at point-blank range. As Natasha was able to control her mech's gyros and faced the _Thor_, Joanna instantly activated her jump jets. With a plume of dust, the _Thor_ rose several dozen meters into the air as Joanna used the planetoid's light gravity to full effect; her omni-mech bounded over the distance between her and the _Warhammer_ as she began to make a descent right on top of her opponent, jump jets at full burn.

  As Natasha deactivated the incessant alarms that were distracting her in the cockpit, the large shape of the _Thor_ loomed over the plexiglass view ports of her _Warhammer_. Natasha instantly knew what was happening; her opponent was going to use the very tactic that killed her previous incarnation; Joanna was going to burn her alive by saturating the mech's cockpit with the _Thor's_ jump jets.

  At the last moment, Natasha ceased trying to regain movement in the mech's right leg and instead allowed the 70-ton _Warhammer_ to topple over and roll sideways. The desperate maneuver worked as the _Thor_ sailed over the _Warhammer's_ shoulders and landed close by, knocking out a few of the _Warhammer's_ armor plates in the process.

  As the _Thor_ rotated its torsos to face the _Warhammer_, Natasha fired her left gauss cannon as the solid slug caught the left arm of the _Thor_. As the gauss slug cored the left arm, the myomer muscles there instantly buckled, making the arm-mounted LB-X autocannon useless. As Natasha somehow got the _Warhammer_ upright again, it was instantly hit by a barrage of missiles fired at point-blank range as the _Thor_ counter-attacked. The resulting armor breaches in the torso and the right arm proved disastrous for the Black Widow as the resulting exposure to vacuum buckled the myomer muscles on the arm as well as causing minor malfunctions to the _Warhammer's_ targeting sensors and gyros. Natasha's mech could barely stand upright as it slumped backwards onto a concrete column that lined the ruins of Camelot Command.

  "I have you now." Joanna gloated as she aimed her PPC at the stricken _Warhammer_.

  As Natasha braced for the resulting explosion that would precede her demise, she was instantly surprised as the _Thor's_ left leg was blown off from a barrage of lasers. Joanna let out a cry of shock as her PPC shot went wide as the omni-mech toppled over. As the _Thor_ struggled to get upright, Natasha noticed another mech behind it. It was a 90-ton _Supernova_, a Clan assault mech mounting a fearsome array of large lasers.

  "You will all die for this!" Cogliostro screamed into his cockpit's comm. link for all to hear.

  As the _Supernova's_ lasers cycled back to full power, it was instantly staggered by a barrage of missiles fired from Joanna's _Thor_. Cogliostro's mech carried a lot of armor however, and the resulting damage was barely noticeable. The _Supernova_ fired again at the _Thor_ but due to the merchant lord's lack of training in handling a mech, only one shot was able to hit Joanna's omni-mech; the _Thor's_ remaining armor on its center melted away but miraculously, the myomers held.

  "Thanks but no thanks." Natasha held her breath as she fired her gauss cannon.

  The 120mm gauss slug scored a lucky hit into the engine compartment of the _Supernova's_ front torso. Within seconds, alarms began to whine all over Cogliostro's cockpit. The merchant lord screamed as his engine core melted through its casing and the _Supernova_ went down in a molten heap.

  "You have my thanks Black Widow, but this battle is not yet over. I made a solemn oath to my Khan that I shall kill you and I will carry through." Joanna was able to prop up her _Thor_ underneath a disabled turret as she turned to face the _Warhammer_ once again.

  "I expected as much. Goodbye, Star Colonel Joanna." Natasha answered as she fired her gauss cannon one more time.

  The Black Widow's shot however, missed the _Thor_ as it embedded itself into the side of the gun turret above the one-legged omni-mech.

  "You missed." Joanna smiled as she aimed her PPC at the immobile black _Warhammer_.

  "I wouldn't be too sure about that." Natasha answered as she sensed a slight tremor in the ruins.

  "What-" Joanna looked up as the copula of the gun turret broke from its hinges and fell towards her _Thor_ omni-mech.

  The impact upon the top of the _Thor_ was not immediately fatal but it did smash the plexiglass view ports of the omni-mech's cockpit. Joanna made an inaudible scream as the resulting vacuum sucked the air out from the inside of the cockpit. As the pressure on her lungs intensified, several of her arteries exploded and drew red blotches on her skin. Joanna's bloodshot eyes practically blew out of her sockets as her body fluids began to freeze from the extreme temperatures. After twitching for several minutes, the old Jade Falcon at last went still.

  Khan Marthe Pryde felt a slight tinge of disappointment while viewing the battle from the command bridge of the _Emerald Talon_. Star Colonel Joanna had almost succeeded in killing this new incarnation but a series of unexpected events sealed her fate. In the end, the Black Widow had fought fairly and would therefore be set free according to the conditions of the trial. Nevertheless, Khan Pryde felt that she would indeed meet this Black Widow again, and next time, the outcome would be different.

  "SLDF dropships are ready to depart, my Khan." The ship's Communications Officer said.

  "Very well. As soon as those dropships have lifted off from the planetoid, begin mopping up operations." Khan Pryde ordered.

  "_Aff_ my Khan." The Communications Officer acknowledged.

  Khan Marthe Pryde said nothing more as she unstrapped herself from the command chair and headed back to her personal quarters.

  _Till next time then_.


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue:

  Most people in the time of the 31st century no longer believed in ghosts. It was just unfathomable that spirits could possibly exist in an age where faster than light travel and the marvels of science enabled mankind to colonize the most distant stars. But man still had many unanswered questions as far as fate and destiny; if gods did exist, did they play a hand in people's lives? Most importantly, did the dead ever influence the living?

  Dusk was beginning to settle and the old wolf tried to finish some remaining paperwork in the office before retiring to his quarters. A sudden chill seized him and he quickly thought it was another heart attack whereupon a few minutes of heavy breathing occurred as he concentrated to get his body back in line. As the intense pain swept over him, his past life began to cascade from his memory palace onto his senses. The room whirled as legions of the dead filed past him until they all formed a wall around the walls of his office and stared down at him with silent, sullen expressions. As the pain in his chest stopped, so did the visions and the gray-haired old man was at last able to rest easy once more.

  Jaime Wolf placed his right hand over his chest and gently rubbed it. Every time the pain would return, it got worse and the agony would lengthen as well. As his senses came back to the real world, Wolf smiled. He would at least live to see another sunrise, the pain never seemed to come when he finally rested his head back and slept in his room, rather, it would only come when he was conscious and under stress. 

  The supreme leader of the most celebrated mercenary unit, Wolf was a man of contrasts; quiet and deliberate, some people wondered how this short, compactly built and unassuming man was able to lead Wolf's Dragoons into a power unto itself. It was a testament not only of his battlefield prowess but to his leadership skills as well that the Dragoons had nearly been destroyed several times yet were not only able to survive every withering onslaught from their enemies, but also became stronger as a result.

  Just before the invasion of the Inner-Sphere was about to begin, the Clans proposed that the Wolves organize a scout unit that would pose as mercenaries in order to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the Successor States. Over sixty years ago, Wolf's Dragoons was born. Led by two freebirth brothers named Jaime and Joshua Wolf, the Dragoons expertly hid their Clan origins as they became the most celebrated mercenary unit in all of the Inner-Sphere. Alas, tragedy struck; Joshua was imprisoned and executed by the mad Anton Marik as the rebellion against his brother Janos began to falter. No one had ever saw Jaime grieve for his lost brother, he could not allow anyone to know his feelings. 

  With the formation of a special unit called the Black Widows that were led by a young trueborn Clan warrior named Natasha Kerensky, Anton was finally killed and his rebellion ended. Jaime had later found out that Natasha and Joshua were more than just close friends; they had become lovers. Joshua's death shredded any remaining vestiges of mercy and humanity within the Black Widow and she became nothing more than a killing machine then.

  As the wars continued, the Dragoons were nearly destroyed by a unit that was modeled after them, the _Ryuken_ regiments of House Kurita. The commander of that regiment, Minobu Tetsuhara, was a close friend of Jaime Wolf and he took the loss of Tetsuhara deeply. In a sense, Tetsuhara had become Jaime's surrogate brother, a sort of replacement for the loss of Joshua. When the Clans at last attempted to invade the Inner-Sphere, Jaime and his Dragoons fought on the side of the Successor States and were able to stop the Clans from succeeding. By then the Dragoons had become a power unto themselves; they had training and manufacturing facilities in their own independent world of Outreach.

  Jaime Wolf sat back on his padded chair, just a few minutes before he almost felt Joshua's hand on his shoulder. It was almost as if he would at last join his brother and they would once again sit back and talk about their many adventures when they were boys back in those halcyon days in Strana Mechty.

  But with the ghost of Joshua before him, he also thought of Natasha Kerensky. She was a feisty young warrior back then, extremely talented and dangerous. Would she have approved as to the way he was leading the Dragoons? He could nearly sense her presence in the room as well.

  The old wolf's hands trembled as he fought to restrain his tears. His age had finally caught up to him. He had survived where the others had died. Oh God, he needed them back, he was so alone now, an old man surrounded by his ghosts.

  A knock on his door brought Wolf's senses back to the real world.

  "Come in." Jaime's voice was but barely a whisper.

  A short, compact and raven-haired woman came through the door carrying a steaming cup of coffee. It was General Maeve Wolf. "I sensed that you were going to have a long night, Colonel. I brought some coffee to help push you through."

  "Thank you, General." Jaime smiled. "I am surprised to see you still here at this late hour. Did something come up?"

  As soon as Maeve placed the coffee cup on Jaime's mahogany table, she sat down on the guest chair and produced a noteputer. When Jaime's grandson Alpin staged a rebellion to overthrow the old wolf and return the Dragoons into the Clan fold, Maeve rapidly rose up the ranks as she led the loyalist forces within the Dragoons to victory after killing Alpin in single combat. She was now the undisputed successor to the leadership of the Dragoons. In some ways, Jaime felt that she made up for the loss of Natasha, if only for a fraction.

  "Just something minor but nevertheless, very curious." Maeve handed the noteputer over to Jaime.

  Jaime put on his reading glasses and stared at the contents. "Test scores of an eight year-old boy?"

  "Yes, but there is something more. This boy's test scores are off the chart, his name is Duncan McGavin and he has just begun mechwarrior training; I haven't seen scores like this in freeborn _sibkin_, only trueborns with exceptional talent ever get these scores. Even then, no trueborn in Clan history ever got test scores as high as this boy." Maeve explained.

  "So what we have is an anomaly then. Duncan McGavin- his name sounds familiar."

  "He is the grandson of Lloyd McGavin, the founder of House Kurita's Nightstalker regiments." Maeve answered.

  "Interesting. Keep me updated on the boy's status."

  "There is something else." Maeve adjusted the noteputer to scroll down to a picture taken a few weeks before. "We also spotted this on the surveillance photos of the boy when he was dropped off by his guardian after he was enrolled in our combat schools."

  Jaime looked at the picture carefully; it showed a young, red-haired woman as she dropped the boy off at the entrance of the school. The face seemed a bit blurred because of the angle that the photo was taken but the features were unmistakable. A sudden, intense pressure began to build in his heart again as Jaime fought to control himself.

  "Are you alright?" Maeve asked.

  Jaime's voice was hoarse, but he had at last achieved control. "I'm fine. If you wouldn't mind General, I would like to be alone for a minute."

  "As you wish, Colonel." Maeve said as she got up and left.

  The old wolf could not believe his eyes as he kept staring at the surveillance photo. His mind told him that it was impossible, that the woman could not be real. It must have been a coincidence, his reasoning explained. Perhaps someone with similar features and he was transposing a dead friend unto it thereby creating an illusion.

  But he knew. Deep in his heart he knew. It was none other than Natasha Kerensky. Tears began to well up in Jaime's eyes as he alternated between shock and denial. Whatever he was going to do now, he needed to know who that woman was. _Whatever the cost_.

  As Jaime Wolf pondered, he did not notice an invisible laser embed itself on the back of his head. The rangefinder beam emanated from the window across an adjacent building. The office building next door was being renovated and so therefore was populated only by construction crews during the daytime; since night had already fallen, Dragoon security personnel naturally thought that it was empty; they were wrong.

  The neighboring floor next door was in fact inhabited at the very time that Jaime Wolf was alone in his office. The surveillance team had been monitoring the situation carefully until the specialists arrived. Watchers had reported that the supreme leader of the Dragoons was now at his most vulnerable point and therefore the death team was now ready to begin their task.

  Joshua adjusted his position overlooking the Dragoons headquarters building; he was lying prone on a padded mattress and making minute adjustments on his scope. The laser rangefinder had returned the distance to target and he was now readying his 8mm Magnum bolt-action sniper rifle to fire. Although the windows of Wolf's office were reinforced to withstand small arms fire, several shaped charges of C4 plastic explosives had been placed by the support team while masquerading as a custodial crew on the frame of the windows the night before. With a flick of the detonator switch, Joshua's assistant would blow the windows outward, thereby giving the assassin a clear shot at the back of Wolf's head. The window of opportunity would only be a matter of a split-second but that was all the time Joshua needed, he was experienced in making this shot over half a dozen times already in previous operations. So far he had not missed a single one.

  Joshua keyed in his throat mike. "All teams report in."

  "Watcher team all clear."

  "Sweeper team all clear."

  As his assistant gave the thumbs-up sign from across the darkened room, Joshua keyed in his mike again. "At my command, prepare to execute."

  Joshua began to level his breathing in order to match the rhythm of his hand when he would pull the trigger while his assistant prepared to detonate the high-explosive charges. A tiny, circular hole was cut in the window of the abandoned office, just small enough for the sniper bullet to pass through. The team hoped that the resulting confusion in the seconds after the shot would create enough of a diversion for them to pull off their escape but one could never discount the element of chance.

  Just as he was about to give the go order, another voice boomed into Joshua's earpiece. "All teams, hold!"

  As Joshua peered over his shoulder anticipating that the team was caught in a compromised situation, he noticed a lithe man with shoulder-length white hair slip into the room and order the rest of his team to leave.

  Joshua gave a puzzled look as he set down the rifle and turned to face his superior. "Lord Meridian, what is the meaning of this? We were about to execute the operation."

  "Your mission has been aborted. The teams are about to be reassigned." Meridian smiled. Even in the darkness of the abandoned office, his white teeth were clearly visible.

  "But why?" Joshua whispered in the darkness. "We could have had Colonel Wolf."

  "New priorities from our Blakist employers. They have other plans for the Colonel and his Dragoons. I am to proceed to the Chainelaine Isles in the Deep Periphery, the Blakists apparently need some extra technical help on _erinyes_."

  "And what of my team?" Joshua asked.

  "Your team has been reassigned but you won't be accompanying them. Our leader has decreed a special mission for you."

  "And that being what?"

  "Why, terminate the Black Widow of course- with extreme prejudice." Meridian replied nonchalantly.

THE END


End file.
